


Enterprising Young Killers

by Slybrarian



Series: Always Bold [1]
Category: Generation Kill, Star Trek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Crossover, Dominion War (Star Trek), M/M, Mission Fic, Nerdiness, Pre-Poly, Pre-Relationship, Space Marines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-11-01 05:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20810180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slybrarian/pseuds/Slybrarian
Summary: In which Lieutenant Nate Fick of Starfleet Expeditionary Command and his platoon must land on a Cardassian world, infiltrate and sabotage a sensor control center, and exfiltrate undetected. It all goes pretty well until someone gets stabbed by a Jem'hadar.Featuring: another human raised on Vulcan and left emotionally constipated, a redneck who wishes the 24th-century educational system had left him less well prepared, feeemales, Klingon mating rituals, an admiral who is technically not Avasarala, and at least one giant pussy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure you want to read this? Check out the [episode preview!](https://slybrarian.dreamwidth.org/74887.html)
> 
> I have no one to blame but myself for this. Warnings for swearing that is either canon-typical or vastly beyond what even Disco is allowed to do. This is primarily a Generation Kill fic as far as characters go, but set in the Star Trek universe during the DS9 period.
> 
> For Trek reference, this is set at the very start of the Dominion War. Specifically, it is happening in the background of ["A Call to Arms"](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Call_to_Arms_\(episode\)) (Which means either in May or, and I'm not even kidding here, Christmas Day depending on your theory of stardates.) For those not familiar with the setting, [Memory Alpha](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main) is an excellent resource. The main things you need to know are this:
> 
> 1) Starfleet is a humanitarian, exploration, and peacekeeping force, and not the military despite the fact that they look and act like the military. As such, the boys are not Space Marines, but rather Starfleet Rangers, who just happen to be very good at killing things, just like starships just happen to carry around megaton-scale weapons. It's for self defense!
> 
> 2) The Federation is about to start a war with a bunch of space fascists, who are lead by Space Trump. I am not even kidding, Dukat said he was going to make Cardassia strong again twenty years ago. I sure am looking forward to the [Sanctuary Districts!](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District)
> 
> 3) The boys are not, in this case, the agents of a hegemonic imperialist power. This is good, because if they were Kira would have to kill them like the former terrorist she is.

**USS Empress Mathilda  
Stardate 50914.4 **

A low whistle pulled Nate's attention away from the bizarrely fascinating sight of Corporal Person attempting to swallow an entire banana without chewing and over to the mess hall's windows. Brad was leaning against the frame, gaze locked on something out in the stars behind.

"Take a look at that," Brad said with a nod as Nate joined him. There were a dozen other ships out there, some far enough away to be barely larger than a fingernail, but there was no need to specify which had caught Brad's eye. The combination of elliptical saucer, underslung engine section, and upraised twin nacelles was hardly uncommon, but there was something uniquely sublime about the proportions of a Sovereign-class starship.

"What a beauty," Nate said. "Is it the one I think it is?"

"Enterprise," Brad confirmed. "I think it's safe to say we're officially in deep shit."

"I won tickets to see the previous one launch when I was sixteen. That's when I decided to join Starfleet."

"Really? Why Dartmouth and not the Academy, then?"

Nate smiled wryly. "I bombed the biochem part of the entrance exam. As much as it pains me to admit, when I went through OCS there was a part of me hoping to be assigned to an explorer."

"No offense, sir, but if the Fleeties would welcome any of us, it'd be you. You know they love a good redemption story. Turning a cold-hearted killer such as yourself into a proper peace-loving member of Starfleet is the sort of personal project starship captains live for."

"Don't sell yourself short," Nate said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the cheering and gagging noises behind him. "There's not a security department in the Fleet that wouldn't snap you up if you ever left the Rangers."

"That may be true for a sophisticated Ivy League officer like yourself, sir, but they don't allow common infantry grunts to track dirt all over their clean, carpeted halls."

"We're the premier fighting force of the Federation, Brad. There's nothing common about us."

"Premier, huh?" Brad glanced past Nate's shoulder. "That's certainly one way to describe us. Cargo has been more like it recently. Disgusting, slobbering, inbred cargo."

Nate could understand the bitterness lurking beneath the fond insults. Six months ago, when Nate had joined Recon, they'd been as active as any other unit, supporting fleet intelligence and peacekeeping activities in the Klingon-Cardassian conflict. Then the Dominion has arrived, setting up shop with their new Cardassian allies, and their operations had quickly dried up. Everyone knew that something big was coming, and other units had been deployed along the border or to classified missions, but again and again First Recon had been held back. Nate felt ambivalent himself; he'd joined first Starfleet and then Recon to serve, not twiddle his thumbs in the holodeck, but at the same time his experience skirmishing with Klingons in previous units had been tough. If the balloon went up, it was bound to be even worse.

His thoughts were interrupted by an electric chime and the smooth voice of the computer. "Company and platoon command teams, report to Theater One. Command teams, Theater One."

"That's our cue," Brad said. "Let's see what latest adventure Starfleet Command has come up with for us."

They made their way through the corridors of their transport, the scruffed-up floors of the troop decks giving way to gleaming metal. One side of the theater was already halfway full when they arrived, packed with Starfleet personnel, both green-shirted Rangers and regular Fleet of various colors. The other side was more of a surprise: a hundred or so Klingon warriors. Apparently the old alliance was definitely back on, no hard feelings. Nate spotted Mike Wynn waving at him from the fourth row, where he sat with their company commander. He gestured toward a pair of empty seats next to him.

"Lieutenant," Nate said once they squeezed their way down there. "Mike."

"Nathaniel," Lt. T'kel replied with the slightest incline of her head. "It appears, Sergeant Colbert, that on this mission you are not the only one with 'warrior spirit'."

"Indeed I am not," Brad agreed, studying the Klingon horde with narrow eyes. Nate's own attention was on the stage and those sitting behind a table on it. Commander Ferrando was up there, along with Captain Picard of the _Enterprise_, the Andorian captain from the regimental combat team also hosted on their transport, and a Klingon wearing a general's vest. 

A few minutes later, once the last few stragglers had arrived and the rear doors sealed, a woman with a flag officer's gold-trimmed uniform walked onto the stage and took a seat at the center of the table. She looked to be of Iranian descent, and possibly old enough to be Nate's grandmother. An unusually long braid trailed down her back.

"Good afternoon," she said with a low, rasping voice. "I am Rear Admiral Soltani. This is the introductory briefing for Operation Silver Hammer. This will be a joint operation between elements of the Sixth Fleet, Ranger Third Expeditionary Unit, and the 19th Imperial Assault Brigade. Everything you are about to hear is classified, et cetera, et cetera. You know the drill, we'll hang you by your fucking balls if you breathe a word of it to anyone."

"Are we sure she's Starfleet?" Brad whispered in Nate's ear.

"As of this morning, the Federation Council has officially declared a State of Emergency. All Starfleet Reserves and planetary self-defense forces are mobilizing, and civil defense measures activated. What has not been made public is that, in closed session, the Council authorized Starfleet to initiate hostilities against the Dominion on Stardate 50975. Chancellor Gowron has issued similar decrees." 

A loud murmur ran through the hall as that sank in. Converting the date over, that meant they'd be at war by the end of the month, if not sooner. Soltani waited patiently for the chatter to die down.

"As you are aware, the Dominion has been moving supplies and materiel into Cardassian space, and using them to retrofit existing Cardassian vessels with their technology. A key site for this is the shipyard at Toros III, where almost fifteen percent of the Cardassian fleet is currently in drydock. Our objective is to destroy that shipyard before the ships can launch. Captain Picard?"

Picard made an upwards gesture and a holographic globe appeared over the table. "Torros is protected by a combination of orbital platforms and surface-based defense batteries. The attack will be in two stages. First, ground elements will disable surface targets, including the main command center and power grid. Then the fleet will arrive to engage their space-based forces and destroy the shipyards."

"Timing for this operation will be critical," Soltani said. "The ground assault must begin immediately before our fleet enters sensor range in order to minimize Dominion response time. This will require that you be deployed well in advance using stealth drop pods launched by cloaked vessels from outside the system perimeter."

Nate frowned at that. Drop pods were, as the name implied, meant to go in one direction. They also weren't something you wanted to spend much time inside. 

"We expect the Dominion will engage transport jammers as soon as they're aware of the attack," Picard said. "In order for us to beam you out, you will need to deploy pattern enhancers at pre-targeted evacuation sites. The time frame does not allow for the use of shuttlecraft in sufficient numbers."

"I cannot emphasize enough that there is no chance of recovery outside those evac sites," Soltani continued. "No search and rescue. No last-minute dustoffs. No handsome men in EXO suits swooping down to carry you off in their arms. We will be in the system for an hour at most before we must leave to escape Dominion reinforcements."

As that sank in silence filled the room, save the rustling of clothes and a rumbling purr from a Caitian behind Nate. He flinched slightly at an unexpected touch on his hand, only to realize it was Brad tapping out a message in Saurian touch-talk.

_"Sorry you wished for a real mission yet?"_

_"Quiet."_ Nate responded.

"With that bit of cheer out of the way," Soltani said, "Brigadier Karg will talk about the parts of the mission you ground pounders will be involved with."

"Thank you, Admiral," the Klingon commander said, standing. She grinned toothily. "Comrades, rejoice! Your hour of glory is at hand. We'll start with the long-range torpedo batteries located in the polar regions. These will primarily be targets for the Assault Brigade's arctic battalion..."

The briefing continued for most of an hour. While it was mostly there to make sure everyone was on the same page for the overall objectives, with detailed operations meetings scheduled later for each unit, there were still a lot of moving parts to go over. It looked like First Recon would mostly be disrupting communications, making sure that once the main attack started the Dominion wouldn't be able to coordinate a response. It felt like a good use of their skills; let the heavy units punch out the main enemy concentrations while they made chaos in the back areas. 

After the group was dismissed, Nate and Brad started back to rejoin the platoon. They didn't make it more than half way before one of the nearby comm panels lit up with a whistle and the computer started speaking. 

"Lieutenant Fick, Nathaniel. Please report to," there was the slightest pause, "Deck Two, Corridor A, Compartment Four at 1030 hours with," another pause, "Corporal Person, Joshua Ray." 

"Brad," Nate said, just as calm as the computer.

"Sir." Brad, for his part, seemed every so minutely unsettled.

"Can you think of a reason why anyone on the command deck would want to speak to Corporal Person?"

"No, sir."

"Nothing at all?" he asked again, a little more sharply. 

"No! Believe me, if I was aware of anything like that, you'd be the first to know."

The two of them stepped into the platoon's barracks, which was as loud and noisy as usual for the time between lunch and their slot in the training holodecks. As if guided by a homing beacon, they turned to the table where Ray was sitting. He remained blissfully unaware of their presence, working on a portable transmitter while listening to something awful on his Brad-mandated headphones, right up until Hasser reached across the table to tap on his shoulder and point at the two men looming behind him.

"What?" Ray said, looking between them.

Ray swore that he was innocent of wrongdoing. Ray had, in fact, taken his position as the platoon's senior technical expert and a role model for younger personnel to heart and been on his best behavior. He was insulted that anyone would think differently. Brad was forced to grudgingly admit that this was more or less the case. 

There wasn't time to properly interrogate him, because they were due in flag country in a few minutes. Brad made sure Ray's uniform was banana-free, and he and Nate marched off to meet their doom. Compartment 2-A-4 had a freshly-painted label on it reading RADM Soltani CO TF-6.16, which was even worse than expected. When the door hissed open, Nate didn't have time to open his mouth: a cephalopodic yeoman lifted one arm to point to another door to the left. Beyond it Admiral Soltani was sitting at a desk, Ferrando standing beside her. 

"Lieutenant Fick and Corporal Person, reporting as ordered, ma'am," Nate said as he and Ray snapped to attention in front of her. 

Soltani stared at them for a few, agonizingly long moments. "I don't think I've seen anyone stand like that since I was a cadet. Tell me, Commander Ferrando, do the Rangers rip out their trainees' spines and replace them with cybernetics?"

"No, ma'am," Ferrando replied. "We make do with physical training."

"You clearly haven't skimped on that. Please, take those sticks out of your asses and sit down like normal people. Just looking at you makes my back hurt," Soltani said, folding her hands in front of her. She waited for them to settle before continuing. "We need to discuss your platoon's role in our mission. Lieutenant, I understand you speak Cardassian?"

"Marginally, yes, and just the Central Standard Dialect, not the surviving regional languages," Nate said cautiously. "It depends on how polite you want me to be."

"And can you read it?"

"Much better, ma'am."

"The lieutenant has been putting in a lot of his off hours studying it," Ferrando rasped. "It was very helpful during our mission to Uvar."

"So I've heard." Soltani opened a drawer in her desk and tossed a brown, unevenly shaped metal box about the size of a shoe at Ray. "What do you think of that?"

"Uh." Ray glanced over at Nate, then at the box. He started turning it over in his hands, examining the various protrusions and ports on it. "It's Cardassian?"

"Oh, please, you can do better than that."

"This connector looks familiar. Can I crack it open?"

"Can you? You're infantry, I assume you're capable of breaking anything."

"May I crack it open?" Ray said with a long-suffering sigh.

"Go ahead."

Ray fished a knife out of his boot and applied it to a barely-visible seam. After a minute of prying half the casing popped off, exposing circuitry and computer chips. "Yeah, that's what I thought. The plug's an Orion C-type interface. I'd say the motherboard, isolinear processor, and the memory chips are all Orion too. Someone just crammed it all into a Cardassian casing and added a power adapter."

"What model of processor?"

"55-Seraph series?" Ray guessed, holding it close to his eye. "Probably made by one of the combines on Miramar. Brand doesn't really matter much, it's all the same architecture." 

"Do you know any vulnerabilities that would let you insert unsigned code into active memory?"

Ray momentarily got that startled expression that popped up anytime someone else suggested he might actually be intelligent, then swiftly switched to his dumb hick mode. "They didn't cover anything like that in commscan operator training, ma'am, and I'm just a poor boy from Nevada, Missouri. It's a Luddite community, they're skeptical of any computers that aren't purely electronic."

"Stop bullshitting and give me an answer," Soltani snapped.

"I might know two or three ways," Ray admitted. "Hypothetically. I've never done anything like that in real life, of course."

"Excellent. Starfleet Intelligence has determined that when the deep-space sensor array at Toros was built twenty years ago, Cardassia outsourced the production of many of its electronic components to the Veran Combine. That includes server blades like the one you're holding."

"Lieutenant, a key part of the plan that was not mentioned at the main briefing is dealing with the long-range sensor net," Ferrando said. "We need to ensure the fleet is not detected until the last possible moment."

"But we can't just blow it up because it's a network, and it'd alert the Dominion anyways," Nate said, nodding along. "So it needs to be sabotaged more subtly."

"Exactly. The mission is to infiltrate a sensor control center, replace a few devices much like that one with duplicates, and exfiltrate undetected. This will introduce a blind spot in their sensors. I've recommended your platoon for the job. Your language skills, and Corporal Person's communications expertise, make you the best choice in case improvisation is needed."

Faith in Ray notwithstanding, Nate wasn't too fond of the idea of relying on their respective self-taught abilities when the fate of thousands of people was on the line. Kill Cardies and sneak stealthily, yes, absolute confidence there; operating equipment more advanced than, for example, a coffee pot without injuring themselves, was more up in the air.

"There's no technical experts available?" he asked.

Ferrando smirked. "None with the necessary training to keep up with Recon troopers. Stealth is key here. If everything goes smoothly, the technical portion is just plug and play."

"I won't lie to you," Soltani said. "This is the most dangerous portion of the entire operation. Your platoon will be alone, a thousand kilometers from any other unit. If something goes wrong, you are on your own."

"As I understand, if something goes wrong, the entire ground force is on its own," Nate replied. "No, if this is possible at all, it'll be my men who can pull it off. I have complete confidence in their abilities."

"This is bullshit," Brad said an hour later, once they had returned from speaking with Soltani's technical staff. He glanced between Ray and Nate, who were gathered in the latter's cramped office-slash-quarters. A hologram of the maps they'd been provided hovered over his desk. "I'm not the only one who sees this, right?"

"The mountains are a nice touch," Ray agreed. "But hey, it probably won't be snowing when we arrive. Probably."

"I'm assured it's the safest place we can touch down and still be in hiking distance of the sensor control center," Nate explained. "A little climbing won't hurt anyone."

"No vehicles?" Brad asked.

"Power signatures would stand out too much, even with just bikes. The area we're landing in is a nature preserve, with agricultural holdings bordering it. On the bright side, it's unlikely anyone will run into us."

"That is good," Brad said, "since if someone does run into us, the result is twenty-four men and women up against an estimated garrison of three hundred soldiers, plus countless more elsewhere on the planet and able to beam in within minutes."

Nate nodded. "Pretty much."

"And of course we know that we're not just talking about Cardies. There are thousands of Jem'hadar, who are genetically engineered for ferocity and told from hatching that there would be nothing more glorious than to die by the dozens to take one of us with them."

"Yes, thank you, Staff Sergeant, we're aware of that."

"I miss Mike," Ray complained. "Our new platoon sergeant is too fucking depressing."

"I miss only being responsible for a half-dozen degenerate throwbacks," Brad said, "but you don't hear me bitching about it."

"You just did."

"I made a statement of fact."

"It sounded more like an emotional outburst. What happened to that Vulcan-trained stoicism?"

"Ray," Nate sighed.

"You're not gonna snap and pull a Burnham on us, are you?"

"That's ancient history." Because Brad could never leave well enough alone anymore than Ray could, he added, "Also, under the circumstances, her actions were logical."

"Sounds like you better watch out for a knife in the back, LT."

"My intention is to leave Sergeant Patrick's team to secure the extraction zone and deploy transporter enhancers," Nate said, wrenching to conversation back on track. He circled an area of the map with his finger. "The rest of the platoon will take this valley down the mountain and follow the creek on through most of the preserve. You'll take up positions here, along this ridgeline overlooking the control center, while Ray and I infiltrate the compound."

"Ray and I and…?" Brad asked with a leading tone.

"Just us."

"Far be it from me to question your tactical acumen, sir, but there is an entire platoon of backup to choose from. You need at least two more people to watch your backs."

"Brad, we know what happens when you try to get into access tubes," Ray said. "I don't feel like lugging around a four-liter jug of lube to get you back out."

"You'll have command of the overwatch teams," Nate added. 

Brad acknowledged that with a tiny tip of his head, and replied, "Stafford and Diego-Garcia would be good choices."

"Two people poking around look like spies. Four look like part of a larger force," Nate explained. "If we get caught inside, we're dead either way. Going in with the bare minimum reduces the chance of that happening." And, he left unsaid, of someone being captured alive for interrogation.

Brad spent a few seconds rotating the maps back and forth, studying the contours of the land. "Why aren't they just dropping the two of you if we don't need the entire platoon? You'd move faster alone and there'd be less chance of detection, and we'd be available for whatever the rest of the battalion is up to."

"Contingency. If we don't successfully infiltrate and sabotage the center by the time the mission clock hits a certain point, the rest of you will need to blow it all to hell. Appropriate munitions will be provided."

Brad met his eyes and nodded. "Understood, sir." 

"But it is just a contingency, and if everything goes well, we'll be in and out unnoticed and spend most of the mission waiting for extraction. With that in mind, I'd like to spend a while refining plans before we bring in the other team leaders. I want to have something to show them that doesn't look like..." Nate hesitated.

"A suicide mission?" Ray suggested. "A one-way trip? Free entry into Valhalla, Sto'vo'kor, or other warrior paradise of your choice?"

"Eloquent as always, Corporal."

"Thanks, LT. I'm glad at least one person in this room actually appreciates me," he said, a little bit wistful and with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. 

The task force's Ops & Plans staff had done most of the work already. Someone had obviously gone to a lot of risk to obtain current high-resolution scans of the planet, and whoever had turned that data into suggested routes and time estimates clearly had experience hiking around the ground instead of beaming everywhere like most Fleeties. They still spent quite a while taking the plan apart piece by piece and putting it back together, 'they' mostly being Brad and Nate. Ray mainly offered color commentary, and probably wasn't needed at all for this part given there'd be no driving or flying, but he was the star of the show and still managed to share a few cogent and on-topic points about security nets. 

It was a solid plan. The team leads, when brought up to speed late that afternoon, were very complimentary. It was pleasingly straightforward but still had a selection of alternate routes and fallback options, and the vast majority of scenarios would be less strenuous than the average training mission. 

It still looked, as Ray had said, like a fifty-fifty chance of being a suicide mission.


	2. Chapter 2

**USS Empress Matilda**  
Stardate 50971.2

Somewhere, Ray had decided long ago, there was an alien space god who liked fucking with him. It was that or the plain old-fashioned God was angry with him for fleeing the flock. 

Starfleet had been a lifeline for him, a quick way to get out of town without having to spend a lot of time going to school again and finding something meaningful to do. Enlisting had conveniently provided technical training and a ride offworld in one package, without all the fuss and waiting of going through the Academy. He'd been thinking he'd getting his hands on some ample nacelles, but naturally the Fleet had seen someone who wasn't glued to a screen and could handle a bit of dirt and put him straight onto Ranger track.

That part had turned out pretty well. Shooting pirates and blowing shit up while still getting to play around with some of Starfleet's fanciest toys had been fun, especially after he'd been recommended for Recon. The great Klingon hissy fit had gotten a bit hairy at times, but hey, Ray had gone in knowing combat was a big part of the job, and it was better than some of the weird-ass shit people on exploration ships had to put up with. But now, not only was there a war about to start, but someone had reached down from the heights of Starfleet Command to say, "you, Ray, have been specially selected for this doomed mission we've come up with."

Even leaving aside the high chance of death, it was certainly shaping up to be one of _those_ missions. 

"LT, could you take a look at this?"

"Hold on a second," Nate - fuck, Fick said behind him. He started wiggling his way up past Ray, a difficult maneuver in the cramped confines of the maintenance tube that they and all their gear were crammed into. "Huh. Yeah, that does look strange, doesn't it?"

"Definitely different than what's on the schematic," Ray agreed. Focus on the work, he told himself. "I don't recognize those symbols, either."

"I don't think they were on your training chart, no." The lieutenant shifted around some more as he tried to get a good look inside the open access panel. "Does it make sense for there to be a secondary microwave relay there?"

Ray pursed his lips. "Maybe. And that's a thermal coupler behind it?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, let me unscrew that, then." He reached around the LT and detached the coupler. Carefully setting it on the tunnel grating, he asked, "Can you see if there's an optical port somewhere below it?"

"Yeah, about ten centimeters to the right of where it was plugged in."

"Good, then we can still splice the first repeater in here." It took a few minutes to figure out how to slide some cabling into the junction box, and find somewhere to tuck the tiny signal repeater since some moron had put a bunch of extraneous crap in there. It was a bit hard; Nate did what he could to help by reading labels and guiding his hands, but he was also being a bit distracting. "Hey, LT?"

"Ray?"

"Could you, uh, stop wiggling so much?"

Nate froze in place. "I take it that's not your phaser, then."

"No, sir."

There was what might have been a giggle, stifled by officer-grade professionalism. "Perfectly normal biological reaction. Just keep working, no need to rush."

No rush, he said. It was bad enough that Ray's knees were getting banged up and he kept hitting his head thanks to the horrible ergonomics of the crawlspace; his own leader was going to leave him with sticky shorts. 

"Okay, server room security's disabled. We can move on to the next part."

They made it through the rest of the base without further issues, eventually getting back out past the perimeter. A minute after that, they reached the hill where Brad and all the other lazy fuckers were sitting around with their thumbs up their asses while Ray did all the real work.

"Everything fine out here?" Nate asked. 

"No sign of unusual activity," Brad whispered back while making hand signals, presumably aimed at wherever Rudy had squirreled himself away. "Unless you count the voles putting on mating displays for Chelle."

"I know how she feels," Ray muttered to himself. 

"How's our time?" Nate asked as they continued to sneak deeper into the tree lines and more of their platoon began appearing from various hiding spots. 

"One hour and fifty-two minutes, sir," Brad replied without so much as glancing at his watch.

"Excellent. We ran into a couple technical hiccups, but that's still close to our best. Good work, Ray."

Ray beamed despite his bruised everything. "Thanks, sir."

"We'll get back to the reserve and then call it a day."

Naturally, the same sadistic fuckers who'd started randomizing the base layout and internal system configurations had programmed in some extra-heavy patrols this time. Because they were Rangers and not common shipboard security, the platoon got past undetected and was only another half-hour late to filling Ray's grumbling stomach. 

"Alright, everyone, gather round," Nate called out as the forests of Toros III dissolved into the gold-on-black grid of the holodeck. "We'll do a formal debrief after Sergeant Colbert and I have had a chance to talk things over - and after you've all had lunch. I just want to say I've been very pleased with our performance in training so far. We've got a combat drill against the rest of the company scheduled for tomorrow, and I _expect_ we'll show them that we haven't been slacking with our other skills."

Ooh-rah, agreeable shouts and roaring noises, et cetera. If moto bullshit could deal with hunger, Ray would be a much happier man.

"One other thing. The fleet goes to silent running at midnight. There'll be one last data burst at that time, so make sure any messages home are ready to go by then. After that, we should expect deployment within forty-eight hours, depending on Dominion activity near Bajor."

"Check your gear," Brad said from his position next to Nate. "Then check your buddy's gear, and your team's gear. Anything that needs repaired or replaced needs to dealt with now. I don't want to be on the drop pod and hearing someone complain they forgot the batteries for their vibrator."

"Thank you, Staff Sergeant. Dismissed. Ray, a word," Nate said as the platoon began filing out and toward the showers. "You've done well improvising in the sims, but if there's any tools you think you're missing, put in an order with Logistics. We've got a priority slot in the replicator queue, so don't be shy."

"I don't think shy's a word anyone's used before, sir."

"In that case be your usual pushy self."

"Do you have enough magnetic clasps?" Brad asked. 

"Three dozen, right here," Ray replied, patting a pocket on the side of his tactical vest.

"Plasmold putty?"

"Two full tubes."

"What about your hacking deck? You're not still using that old CyberTell-300, are you?"

"Excuse me?" Ray said, outraged and affronted. "I don't care what R&D says, Bessy is more reliable than anything they've put out in the last fifteen years."

"Fine. But you did at least upgrade the optical probe to an RJ-90, right?"

"Yes, mom, and I packed a sandwich, too. You know, I did just get through the simulation with flying colors."

"He's got a point, Brad," Nate said. 

"I suppose that's true." For once in his mouthy life Brad failed to disparage Ray. In fact, he even gave him an approving nod. "Keep up this kind of work, Corporal, and we'll have to promote you."

"My life's painful enough without sergeant's stripes. I'll get myself NJPed if you try. Don't think I won't."

"Run along," Brad said with a shooing motion. 

Ray didn't need any further encouragement, leaving them to do whatever it was they did while alone. He showered, got a fresh uniform, and then barely made it through lunch before getting harassed by the computer. It was summoning him to a last-minute briefing for the various assault teams' tech specialists from some android fuck. After that he took Nate's suggestion to heart and went to badger the fabrication center into making him a few customized tools. It wasn't until after dinner that Ray managed to retreat to the barracks for some downtime.

Most of the platoon was there, except a few who'd disappeared off to the shipwide kadiskot challenge or some equally lame activity. It was comfortably noisy with all the usual activity: people bullshitting about how great they were, playing games, bullshitting about getting laid, listening to music despite how _certain_ corporals were forced to wear earphones, and more bullshitting. Some giant nerd, possibly of Hebrew origins, had set up a projector streaming BBC Interstellar, where a Saurian with a tophat and Scottish accent was keeping the galaxy up to date on war preparations. 

Ray got roped into playing cards by Walt, because he was a sucker for puppy-dog eyes even though it never ended well. It was a good thing shirts were free, because between the two of them they'd lost an entire wardrobe in their time with the platoon. In this case, between Trombley's perpetual confused and sullen expression and Mrr'sha being a giant pussy, their opponents had pretty good poker faces. Or they would, if they were playing poker instead of the latest weird-ass redneck game Walt wanted to play so he could feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

"I don't understand why we have to sit in the forest the whole time," Trombley said as Mrr'sha dealt a hand. "We might not even get to shoot anyone."

"It's a stealth mission," Ray explained patiently. "Which means we try to avoid being noticed, which is hard to do if there's bodies everywhere."

"But Alpha's kidnapping the prefect," Trombley complained. "And RCT-1 gets to assault a spaceport."

"Assaults on foot aren't as fun as they sound," Mrr'sha replied. "Too much running for the amount of killing involved. Spades wild."

"Yeah, but at least there's killing."

"Have patience, child," Mrr'sha said. "As my grandmother always told me, you must learn to stalk and pounce before you can disembowel."

Ray whistled. "Wow, I wish my gran had sayings like that. Hers mostly involved mortification of the body and shit." 

"Brad's run us through a dozen assaults on this mystery base," Walt pointed out. "You got shot in the ass during the last one, remember? Ray, pass me that jack. No, of stars."

"Yeah, but most of the time we're just talking about how to hide better and trying not to get stepped on by enemy foot patrols," Trombley continued. "At least you get to something active."

Ray shrugged. "I get to crawl around on metal grating. I'm pretty sure I'm wearing holes into my knees and elbows."

"It has been kind of weird," Walt said. "What are you guys doing in there? For that matter, why are you spending half the time we're not on platoon exercises cooped up in private holodeck sessions with the lieutenant or off the ship entirely?"

"Walt, you know I love you like the brother I never had," Ray said, placing his right hand over his heart, "and that I would tell you if I could, but sadly the full tale of my genius and heroics will have to remain secret for now."

Ray had, in fact, be thoroughly threatened by various and sundry security personnel, as if Nate asking nicely wasn't enough to keep his trap shut. One slackjawed redshirted intelligence imbecile had even made it clear that, if it looked like he might be captured before the mission was complete, he should kill himself in a way that sure his head wasn't in one piece.

"Uh huh."

"Remember, what I don't tell you, the enemy can't mindrip out of you."

"I'm just saying, that's exactly what you'd claim if your secret mission was boring as fuck and you were too embarassed to admit it."

"You'll just have to wait for my best selling tell-all book like everyone else."

"Why us, though?" Trombley asked. "There's gotta be someone else in Starfleet to take this mission."

"Okay, so here's how the boss lady and the lieutenant explained it to me. Basically, everyone else in the galaxy is incompetent." 

Walt gave him a skeptical, perhaps even disappointed little frown. "That doesn't sound like something Lt. Fick would say."

"I'm paraphrasing," Ray said, waving his objection away. "Normally Starfleet would send in some goldshirts. Or the command crew of a random nearby starship if there was a time crunch, but here we're planning ahead for once. You know how goldshirts are, though. The security guys are poor copies of us, and the engineers are so bad at land nav they don't even try to walk around their own ships without using lifts."

Ray picked up the discard pile and started shuffling. "But what are the alternatives? You can't send in the Klingons. As dope as their special forces are, there's only, like, eighty Klingons total who understand the concept of stealth and subterfuge, so they're pretty busy already."

"Their ships have cloaking devices," Walt pointed out.

"That just requires pushing a button. It doesn't count. Then there's the various SDFs, but let's face it, most of them are like Earth and Vulcan: they've only kept around the paramilitary police and disaster response types and outsourced all the violence to us. Who's that leave? The Tellarites? You can't infiltrate a base with hundred-ton hover tanks or heavy artillery."

Trombley, bless his heart, looked even more confused than normal. "So you're saying we're just the last resort?"

"No, I'm saying we're the best. They expect that if things go wrong, thirty of us can kill three hundred... what are you even doing?"

Walt, who was in the middle of stealing a number of cards from piles Ray had been carefully building, said, "Playing instead of listening to myself talk?"

"You innumerate motherfucker," Ray shouted, "you remember this is a partners game, right?"

Walt had the temerity to roll his eyes. "I know, I got a plan. Calm your tits."

"Calm my tits," Ray hissed. 

"Grand fizzbin," Mrr'sha said, playing several cards and scooping up half the tricks on the table.

"Fuck!"

"See," Walt said, "I got these instead of her."

"It just sucks that I might be in the first action of the war and still not have a chance to kill a spoonhead," Trombly said. Mrr'sha reached across and cuffed him upside the head like a misbehaving kitten. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Language," she rumbled. 

And of course Poke had to choose that moment to throw his ten credits in, leaning back from where he was playing poker like a normal person at the next table over. "You can't just go dropping racial slurs like that, dog. Especially not where the Fleeties might hear. We'd never get out of the sensitivity seminars."

"The computer's always listening," Ray agreed. "There's an alarm going off on the bridge right now."

"You called Sergeant Colbert a green-blooded hobgoblin this morning," Trombley said to Poke. 

"That's irony about his upbringing. Part of a long-established rapport. I earned that. You're just appropriating words used by people with actual reason to hate the Cardies. You've never even seen one. Typical white boy behavior."

"See, why can say that about me and I can't call them, you know?"

"Trombley, don't get him started," Walt groaned.

It was too late for that. Blah blah, neglected history of the human race. Blah blah, travails of his idiot cousin who moved to a border colony and got kicked off the planet because of a peace treaty. Blah blah, long-lasting legacies of ethnic strife and oppression that echoed into utopia. It was a good thing that Ray had gotten good at tuning it all out and that Poke was an incredibly charismatic motherfucker, or there would have been bloodshed by now.

Probably mostly Ray's.

"I still want to kill one," Trombley muttered, once Poke's metaphorical bloodlust had been sated and he went back to bothering other people.

"Where did they even find you?" Ray asked. "Are you a Lunatic? You look like you could be a Lunatic."

"Michigan."

"That figures," Walt said. "The entire middle of the continent is fucked up."

Before Ray could say anything to defend his honor, Brad came up from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. "Your turn with the comms booth."

"Thank Christ. Orex. Orex! Tap in, will you? You've got three hands, maybe you can unfuck this situation."

Ray escaped from the ruckus for the barracks and up to the slightly-more sedate environs of the main rec room. Brad had timed things just about perfectly; Ray wasn't waiting for more than a minute before one of the private booths lining one wall opened up and his name appeared above the door along with a countdown timer. He sat down inside, turned on the mirror feature to make sure his hair was in place, and started recording.

"Hey, mom. It's Josh." It felt weird to say that while aboard ship. He'd made the choice to use his middle name in Starfleet when he joined; little Josh was becoming an ever more distant memory. "I just wanted to say hi to you, gran, and, well, anyone else in the family who's not afraid of a screen. You've seen the news so I won't beat around the bush, we're probably going to be in the shit pretty soon. I don't want you to worry about me. We dealt with the Klingons fine and if anything my platoon's better than it was back then. You'd like the lieutenant, he's a pretty good guy. I mean, you liked Brad when he visited, so your taste isn't that great, but anyways."

"Actually, speaking of taste. I convinced Rudy to try your cranberry bar recipe. Sort of. Before I go any further, I know how you feel about substitutions, but we're a thousand light-years from Earth…"

Ray rambled on until his time ran out, filling her in on the latest gossip from the platoon. She still didn't understand his decision to join Starfleet, and probably never would, nor approve of his career choices after doing so. If he was going to forsake the faith of his mother, and his mother's mother, and so on and so forth, the least he could do was be an officer. Maybe a doctor like Sally Ann, who visited weekly even if she used the devil's transport beam to do so. She still supported him as best she could and took an interest in the weirdos he spent all his time around. Maybe if she was hearing him ramble about Mrr'sha's ongoing static problem she'd think he wasn't likely to get in trouble.

Once he was done and the message was in the dispatch queue, Ray started back toward the barracks, but after hesitating at an intersection he turned away. He stopped by the equipment room to pick up a PADD instead, then took a lift to the lowest deck of the ship's saucer. A few twists and turns and a slide down a ladder brought him to a small lounge. There wasn't much in it, just a couch, a replicator, and a painting of some kind of space walrus, all looking out through forward-facing windows. Some refit or other had cut it off from easy access to the rest of the deck. Ray had found it months earlier while crawling around every nook and cranny of the ship, and as far as he could tell he was the only one aware it existed. That suited him just fine.

The fleet out the windows had grown denser, not just with more Starfleet ships of every shape and size but dozens of Klingon warships, all orbiting some nameless gas giant notable only for its sensor-obscuring magnetic field. Below them, a purple storm large enough to swallow worlds swirled. Ray stretched out on the couch with a fake beer, put on some concentration music, and started reviewing his tech readouts again.

Some time later, Ray looked up at the sound of footsteps coming down the ladder. He was surprised to look back and see the lieutenant. Nate had ditched his uniform's jacket at some point, leaving just a green short-sleeved undershirt. Before Ray could do more than sit up, Nate waved for him to stay where he was.

"Need something, sir?"

"Relax, Ray, we're off the clock. I just saw you weren't with the rest of the men and wanted to check in. Mind if I join you?"

"My couch is your couch, LT." Ray scooted to one side to make room. 

Nate flopped down in a relaxed, languid way at odds with how controlled he usually was. Seeing him actually relax was a little strange; for that matter, he looked tired in a way that Ray wasn't used to. Physical exhaustion after being run ragged in training happened often enough, but not a glimpse of what was lurking under the shields he normally kept up.

"Nice view," Nate said after a minute. 

"Yeah, it usually is. It's funny how ships always go the same way around planets."

"Must be why they call it standard orbit."

"Clever. Want a beer? It's fake, but you can at least imagine you're getting drunk."

"Sure, thanks."

Ray retrieved a pair of fresh cold ones from the replicator. As he handed one over, he said, "You look like you could use the real thing. Busy night?"

"An ops planning meeting on the flagship ran long. We paused for supper and then kept going. Of course, when I say we, I mean the group as a whole. Other than a few aides, I think I was the only one under O-3 there, and it was pretty clear I was supposed to sit quietly unless called on."

"That sounds god-awful."

"You know what's funny? Your name came up a couple times."

"You're fucking with me."

"Nope. Apparently the tech gurus are pleased with how well you've done in training."

"Okay, that's not too bad if it's just the geeks." Nate shook his head. "Tell me it was just the geeks."

"I was in a room with two flag officers, a half-dozen battalion and regimental commanders, a bunch of staff officers twice my age, and the captain of the Federation flagship," Nate said. "In the thirty seconds I was allowed to speak, I assured them that I have faith in the ability of my platoon, and you in particular, to pull off this mission. I absolutely meant it."

Ray ducked his head and tried to focus on something other than his reflexive thrill at the praise. "The fact that any of those people even know I exist scares me more than the Jem'hadar."

"I hate to break it to you, but your days of being mistaken for a dumb boy from the land of rad roaches may be coming to an end. You're practically respectable now."

"I guess as much time as we've spent training together, something was bound to rub off on me." Ray regretted it instantly.

"That's what was rubbing off?" Nate asked with a sly smirk. "I could have sworn it was my ass."

It was good thing Ray wasn't drinking at that moment, because if he had the mission would have failed before it started thanks to him choking to death. He was well aware that Nate was no more a naive little boy than the rest of them, but usually he was a bit more _subtle_. "Uh. Um."

Ray could see Nate switching to LT mode. "I'm sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No! Christ, if I couldn't handle a little innuendo, I'd have to switch to regular Fleet. And maybe gag myself. It's just that usually when you do that, it takes me ten minutes to get the joke."

Nate relaxed again. "That's good. I've got an image as a gentleman to uphold." This time the fucker waited for Ray to be finishing off his beer to add, "Especially since based on what people say, the alternative is apparently spaceport cocksucker."

After all the wheezing and coughing had subsided, and Nate stopped laughing, Ray pointed an accusatory finger at him and said, "I should have known you were as evil as the rest the upper-crust elitist college-educated snobs."

"Guilty as charged." Nate spread his hands and smiled innocently, the cheeky asshole. "You could join us on the dark side."

"Yeah, sure."

"I mean it. I have seen your aptitude scores, you know. And Brad was right earlier when he said you're looking at a promotion after this. Sergeant for sure, but there's no reason you couldn't hit OCS instead, especially now when the Fleet's going to war footing."

Ray chuckled. "Can you imagine me as an officer?"

"Yes." Nate said a lot of things with conviction, but this seemed more absolute than usual.

"Seriously, you think I'm crazy now, try piling that kind of responsibility and see what happens."

"Warrant track instead?"

Ray shook his head vehemently. "God, no, the only thing worse than regular officers are warrant officers. If it ever looks like it might happen, just shoot me."

"I feel like I should be insulted." Nate looked out at the planet, and for a few seconds there was something in his expression that made Ray worry if he really had hurt him somehow. "Did you know that they found life down there?"

"In that thing?" Ray asked, surprised. "I thought it was just another ball of hydrogen."

"Yeah, there's an entire ecosystem of gas-bag creatures. One of the other officers mentioned it while we were eating. Apparently the Enterprise's improved sensors see through the magnetic interference better than the last survey ship's."

"Cool."

"You ever think about switching branches?" Nate asked, looking back at Ray again. "Not necessarily to a technical track or anything, but maybe security on a deep-space starship?

He had more than once, especially after his first few firefights. Once he got the jitters squared away the urge had gone with them, even if occasionally the plaintive letters from Personnel Management about his wasted potential looked tempting. "Nah, that's not my thing. The Fleeties can poke at the weird animals, I'll stick to what I'm good at." 

"Not even a little? Why?"

Ray shrugged awkwardly and deflected. "For one thing, our uniforms actually have pockets. For another, as a Ranger I can say fuck."

Nate looked skeptical, but thankfully he let it drop and played along. "I'm pretty sure the rest of the Fleet can say fuck, Ray."

"When was the last time you heard a starship officer drop the ol' f-bomb?"

"I'm only around them in the context of briefings, and I don't use it then either. We try to aim for a slightly higher standard on professionalism."

"So that's a never, then. Look, tell me this: if we beamed over to _Enterprise_, went up to the bridge, and said, "hey, y'all, what the fuck's happening", how long do you think it would take Captain Vineyard to have his killer robot throw us in the brig?"

The LT was having serious trouble keeping a straight face before Ray's unassailable logic. Those years in debate club were finally paying off. "Commander Data thinks highly of you, and you shouldn't call him a killer robot."

"He's taken over their ship. More than once!"

Nate shrugged. "Who hasn't? Things happen."

"Who hasn't, things happen!" Ray threw up his hands. "Explorer Corps gets up to all sorts of crazy shit: officers angering gods and getting possessed by glowing clouds and becoming their own grandparents, and they're the stars of the Federation. Meanwhile, the grunts in Expeditionary Command get called violent neaderthals and treated like we can't be trusted with crayons because we might murder someone with them. When have I ever done anything remotely like stealing a starship because my daddy sent me a text message?"

"On the one hand, you're loud and obnoxious. On the other, it's hard to think of anything else that's substandard in your professional conduct," Nate admitted. "On the gripping hand, there was that incident on DS9 where you rooted the holosuites so you could load a bootleg Orion orgy program."

"You know about that?" Even Ray would have to call it a squeak. His face was on fucking fire. The LT hadn't even been with them yet!

"I know a lot of things, Ray," Nate replied, his grin decidedly less boyish and more wicked than usual. "Some of them, I wish I didn't." 

"Fuck it, I'm going to go throw myself out an airlock." Sucking hard vacuum couldn't possibly be worse than sitting there knowing that Nate was aware of his most embarrassing moment. 

There was a soft rap on the doorframe behind them. Ray turned slowly, already knowing who he was going to see. There weren't many people that could sneak up on him, and one of them was a giant cat who couldn't fit through the companionway. 

"Evening, gentlemen," Brad said.

"Brad," Nate said. "Have a seat."

Ray sighed, because he knew who was going to have to move, and sure enough Brad waited patiently for him to shift leftward toward Nate. The couch, adequate for two thinish men, was a bit of a squeeze once you added Brad's oversized ass. As if that weren't bad enough, Brad and the LT immediately started doing their soulful eye-staring thing, ignoring the man in the middle. Brad claimed that Vulcan mental discipline training couldn't actually give a human telepathic abilities, but that's what he would say, wasn't it? Ray was unconvinced. 

"This is nice and quiet," Brad observed. "I can see why you losers are hanging out down here instead of with your fellow slobbering imbeciles or dickweasel officers."

"Are you going to let him talk to you like that, LT?" Ray asked. 

"I told him to speak freely when we're alone a long time ago."

"What am I, chopped liver?"

"I'm assured you can be discreet."

"Brad," Ray said, "I think the LT's been replaced with a changeling, because the real thing would never say something that dumb."

Brad sighed deeply. "Try not to ruin the moment, Ray."

As he said it, he was reaching inside one of the cargo pockets of his pants. He withdrew a slender, almost flask-like bottle. He popped the stopper off and handed it over to Ray. He took a sniff then a small drink of the emerald liquid, swallowing hastily as his mouth caught fire. He silently handed it off to Nate, who took a less cautious swing. 

"That's not synthehol," Nate choked out a few seconds later. Ray patted him on the back sympathetically.

Brad grinned. "No, sir."

"What is it?"

"Green."

"Hit me again," Ray said, grabbing at the bottle. Brad reached past him and snagged it himself. They spent a while passing it back and forth in silence.

"You didn't come down here just to get us buzzed, did you?" Nate asked once the empty bottle was tucked back out of sight. 

Brad shook his head. "The BBC just announced that Starfleet is deploying a minefield at the wormhole."

Ray waited while Nate's larger brain processed that for a minute. "Pass word to the team leads. We should expect to be oscar mike before first watch. Have Bryan sleepy-shot anyone who doesn't look likely to get a full night's sleep."

"That bad?" Ray asked.

"Someone's decided that now's the time to cut off their reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant, and that means it's our cue."

"I assume you include yourself in that order?" Brad asked.

"I suppose I should," Nate said, gracefully levering himself up to his feet. "I wouldn't want to be accused of hypocrisy. You too, Ray."

"I'll be fine."

"You'll be fine, in bed and medicated," Brad said. "Trust me, when you see our ride, you'll thank us."

He was right, because of course he was. Their ride was a fucking bird of prey that was probably older than Ray's gran. Starfleet regulations regarding long-term berthing for enlisted troopers allowed for bunkrooms, but still mandated privacy screens and niceties like mattresses. The troop bay on this piece of crap looked like something out of a twentieth-century naval reenactment, the kind with less sodomy and more flogging. To make matters worse, the cargo bay they might have spread out into was taken up by the platoon's dropship.

"Dawg, the fuck is this?" Poke asked as Ray and Brad squeezed past him. He pointed at one of the bare metal triple-bunk beds. 

"It's better than a rock."

"A rock usually has some dirt around as cushioning."

"We're not going to be aboard long. Get out your bedroll and make do."

"Sergeant Colbert? Sergeant!" It sounded like Lilley shouting. It was a bit hard to tell, over the sound of a loud, almost doglike growling that was presumably related to the equally loud hissing cat noise.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Brad said, stalking toward the other side of the bay and leaving Ray all by his lonesome.

As Ray continued through the cramped room, looking for somewhere safe to store his gear, he couldn't help but notice a Klingon staring at him. There were several of them standing around, some just watching, a couple being vaguely helpful, and several admiring the size of Rudy's guns. This one seemed to be looking at Ray in particular. There was something vaguely familiar about her. She was extremely tall, beefy, had lots of teeth: those traits were a dime a dozen. The House Mo'kai crest on the armor matched the rest of the crew. Maybe it was the braids? You didn't see a lot of those with Klingons.

In any case, the crazy-eyes were getting a bit creepy. Ray dodged a few aisles over, only to find that she'd not only followed him but now had a clear path. 

"You!" the Klingon bellowed, pointing straight at Ray and charging his way. "I know you!"

"Uh," Ray said, combat reflexes utterly failing him. This was a friendly ship. The Klingons were supposed to be allies again. And where the fuck was his holdout phaser?

"You're the one who shot me!" Yep, that was why she looked familiar. 

"Is there a problem, ma'am?" Brad said, materializing out of nowhere like a teleporting mama bear and planting himself firmly between Ray and the hulking menace. 

"Problem? Not at all!" The Klingon pushed past Brad and pulled Ray into a tight… hug? It seemed like a hug, an uncomfortably tight one that left him desperately trying not to stare into the boob gap in her armor. She released him and pushed him back. "What is your name, warrior?"

"Ray. Ray Person."

"I am Gralnath, daughter of Stabor. Look at the scar you gave me!"

There was a long, nasty burn scar across most of the left side of her head, wrapping around just above her ear and terminating with a milky white eye. "It's very impressive?" he suggested.

She cackled. "It is! My brother is extremely jealous. You should be proud of your comrade, Staff Sergeant, he has excellent marksmanship."

"We try not to go overboard with the praise," Brad said. "He gets a big head."

"How appropriate we should be on the same mission! After this battle, you and I must get a drink and share our stories about what happened on Karellon II." Gralnath squeezed his shoulder painfully and flashed a toothy grin. "If not in this life, then in Sto'vo'kor!" With that she turned and stomped off in a clatter of armor.

"Yay, Sto'vo'kor," Ray replied faintly. He hoped that if he did die, he went to a human heaven, because he didn't think he could survive one filled with Klingons.

"What the matter, Ray?" Brad asked. He was smirking, the arrogant fucker. "Finally found some pussy you don't want to pound?"

"I think I'm going to be generous and pass on this one."

"Getting your needs taken care of somewhere else?"

"Huh?" Ray could feel his face scrunch up in confusion, recon-trained composure notwithstanding. "I just don't want to be snapped in half. Hey, maybe we can set her up with Walt. I bet something a little wild would help him loosen up."

"You're a terrible person, and everyone on Earth is probably glad you're far away from them."

They pushed through to the cargo bay. Their drop pod was waiting, thirty meters of angular metal so black it was almost impossible to make out the contours. Ray made a beeline for the front, where he secured his ruck behind the pilot's seat. He started looking over the diagnostics, hoping whatever Fleet chucklefucks had squeezed it into the bay hadn't damaged it. 

"Ray." He turned just in time for a bundle to thump into his chest. It turned out to be a hammock. "Set up in here. Merry Christmas."

"Brad, you shouldn't have."

"No, I shouldn't have. But between showing a minor bit of favoritism and allowing a krick in your neck to doom the entire Alpha Quadrant to oppression and slavery, it seemed like the lesser evil."

"Come on, I'm at least medium-sized evil." Ray started hanging the hammock up near the pilot's seat. Casually, he added, "Actually, if you're showing favoritism, maybe one more favor?"

Brad eyed him suspiciously, completely understandable doubt warring with the fact that he could never actually say no to his darling Ray-Ray. "What?"

"If I buy it out there, next time you're on Earth, check in on my mom."

Brad hesitated a moment, then nodded slightly. "If you'll do the same."

"Of course." Ray felt like he should make a joke to lighten the mood, maybe point out that Brad had forbidden him from ever meeting his family on pain of Vulcan death-grip, but even he could tell they were having a moment. There was an awkward silence as Ray waited for Brad's logically-constipated mind to spit out something else. "Not that it's going to be necessary. A few scale-skinned freaks can't stop us. I've been assured of this."

"Don't jinx us. Or mock the lieutenant." There was a loud crash outside the pod's doors, and Brad turned to scowl out it. "Those are explosives, Trombley! Ray, work on your preflight or something."

Ray waited for him to be just out of the door, then shouted, "Hey, Sergeant!"

"What, Ray?"

"Are we there yet?"


	3. Chapter 3

**IKS Maha'cha   
Stardate 50975.8**

It was kind of funny to be standing on the bridge of a Klingon warship. About a year earlier, Nate had participated in the capture of a ship not much different, which had been harassing humanitarian relief shipments to Cardassia. It'd been that action that had gotten him past the final cut for Recon training. Now, after six months out of that training and with his platoon, the Cardassians were enemies and the Klingons allies again. 

"Well," Captain Gralnath said, sitting on her command throne, "it appears we have successfully penetrated their outer perimeter undetected."

"How sure are we of that?" Nate asked. "That patrol ship got pretty close."

"It was an old vessel, even by Cardassian standards. I doubt the Dominion has had time to install their anti-cloaking technology on it yet."

"I suppose that makes sense."

"And if they had found us, I expect we would be fighting for our lives. The main Dominion fleet may be gathering to strike at the wormhole, but the ships that remain would make it a very short battle." She sounded quite cheerful as she said it. "The same can be said for the carriers moving the other units. The lack of explosions is a good sign."

"Today is a good day to die, but tomorrow would be better?"

"Indeed."

"My lady!" the helmsman shouted. "We have achieved our orbital insertion trajectory."

"I believe that is, as you say, your cue, Lieutenant. May you find glory and honor in battle!"

"Likewise, ma'am." Nate tapped the matte-finish field combage he wore, causing a chirp from the almost-unnoticeable receiver in his ear. "Fick to Colbert. Load the boys up, we're ready to go."

Efficient as ever, Brad had the platoon loaded into the drop pod by the time he reached the rear of the ship. His men and women were strapping into their seats, with their gear in compartments above and below them. They'd left their famously colorful Starfleet uniforms behind when leaving _Matilda_, trading them in for dark khaki utility suits, tactical vests, and low-profile helmets. There was just barely enough room for him to walk down the center without hitting anyone's knees, although getting past their Caitian and Edosian required turning sideways. He took his own seat, just behind and to the left of the pilot's station. 

"We're secure, sir," Brad said, taking his slot across from Nate.

Nate nodded. "Thank you, Staff Sergeant. Corporal Person, contact the bridge and get us moving when you're ready."

"I was born -"

"Ready, yes, thank you, Ray," Brad finished. "Your planet's love of hyperbole is matched only by its love of stock phrases."

"Everyone's a fucking critic." 

The takeoff was so smooth that it took a few seconds for Nate to realize they were in flight. The engines were barely on much longer than that; the bird of prey's own starting velocity would carry them right up until their braking maneuver at the edge of the target's atmosphere. That left the pod eerily silent, without even the constant background thrum of a starship's warp drive, until the men broke it and started talking amongst themselves.

"I make it five hours and thirty-three minutes to landing, LT," Ray reported. "We should be hitting dirt about an hour before local sunset."

"Very good, Corporal."

"You should get some sleep, sir," Brad said. 

"I got plenty on the Maha'cha." Brad didn't reply, waiting patiently until Nate amended, "More than I'm going to get sitting."

"Try the breathing and meditation exercises I showed you."

Ray looked over his shoulder to give Nate an incredulous look, and then turned the other way to do the same to Brad. 

"You never teach me any mystical Vulcan shit. I thought I was your best friend."

"I have been entrusted with the refined wisdom of countless generations of Vulcan philosophers, scholars, and scientists. Why would I share it with someone from Earth's most degenerate region, who would surely use it for nefarious purposes?" 

In the privacy of his quarters, Nate had mostly used music or birdsong as a focusing tool, but listening to Brad and Ray squabble like an old married couple was surprisingly close to white noise. He closed his eyes, figuring he could at least relax a little, and started mentally working his way through the mindfulness chants, first in Classical Vulcan and then, for fun, trying to translate them on the fly to Central Cardassian Standard.

Nate woke with a start. There was a low rumble and vibration running through every surface, and a quick glance forward showed flames licking past the tiny window. Nate shot an annoyed look at Brad. For someone who prided himself on the superior emotional control of his Vulcan-trained mind, he seemed awfully smug. 

"Sixty seconds to touchdown, retrothrust in thirty," Ray said. None of his usual joshing cheer was present, just the cool calm of a pilot facing a moderately interesting challenge. "Check your straps. This could get a little bumpy."

Exactly thirty seconds later, there was a sudden kick as the engines fired hard enough to overcome the inertial dampers. The pressure ramped up quickly, Nate's weight easily doubling under the acceleration, and then without warning not only cut off but reversed until he was almost drifting out of his seat. There was a sideways lurch and the slightest bump and crunch as Ray not only hit their target clearing but slid the pod into the treeline with the last of their momentum.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying Federation Starfleet," Ray said. "It is a sunny twenty-two degrees here on Torros III. We hope you enjoyed your ride, please disembark through the hatch at the rear of the spacecraft."

As the team at the rear rushed out to secure the LZ, Nate handed Ray his rifle, then pulled his own from its charging cradle next to his seat. It was an older model than the compression-pulse rifles most of the men carried, but the smaller size made it a lot easier to lug around in tight spaces. He clipped it into place on his vest and then snapped his packs on before heading out. Nate was second to last off the ship, shading his eyes from sudden sunlight as he stepped out. The small mountain vale looked identical to what they'd been training on in the holodeck. Maybe the colors were a little vibrant, the greens deeper and the flowers brighter, but that might just be in his head. After all, a top-quality hologram was supposedly indistinguishable from the real thing.

"Alright, let's get the ship covered!" he shouted. He helped Stafford and Christeson pull the camo tarp from its slot on the ceiling of the pod, then roll it out to cover the craft. There wasn't a lot of need, given how Ray had already gotten halfway into the foliage, but every bit counted.

When that was done, he went to join Brad, who was squatting in the center of the clearing. He had his tricorder out in one hand and was poking through the grass and dirt with the other.

"Weather looks good," Brad said, standing back up and brushing his hand off on his pants. "Soil moisture's low, too, so there shouldn't be much mud. I'd say we're looking at six hours down, five up."

It was about as good as timing as they could have hoped for. "If we leave soon, we should be able to head back before sunrise."

"And then we can have a nice picnic while waiting for extraction." Brad nodded approvingly. "Basically just a normal day in the park."

"It'll be night, homes. I thought Vulcans were elves, not vampires," Ray said, joining them. "Sir, I've run through every comms band twice. There's no new chatter, even on the encrypted channels. I'd say we got down unnoticed."

"Excellent flying, Ray," Nate told him. 

He leaned in close, and said sotto voce, "Between us three, it was mostly ballistic flight, I just hit the stop button at the end."

Nate looked at the location of the pod, and how it had slid about ten meters horizontally in half as much space to fit between two huge old-growth trees. "Right. Sergeant, let's get moving."

"Team Three, you're on point!" Brad bellowed. 

Most of the platoon spread out in pairs, taking up a loose formation to keep their lines of sight clear and avoid any dangers from area-of-effect weapons. Nate was with Brad; Ray and Hasser were trailing a half-dozen meters behind, watching their six. It quickly became hard to pick any of the rest out as they activated the chameleon mode on their expedition gear and it began adapting to their forest surrounding. It wasn't the true invisibility of a cloak or holographic shroud, just real-time blending of colors and shapes to the background, but to the naked eye it was the next best thing. It didn't require an energy source, either, working off tiny piezoelectric pumps in their boots, which meant that coupled with a sensor-damping vest they were hard to notice with technological means as well. 

If you left aside the fact that everyone was carrying multiple phasers and grenades, it really was exactly what you'd expect for a hike through a nature preserve. For that matter, if the park had been on Second Risa it would have been downright normal, since you needed a weapon there in case you ran into the local megafauna. Really, the lack of conversation was a bigger difference. Out there in the field, exposed and far from support, the usual chatter was muted at best and mostly confined to warnings about trip hazards. Even Ray and Hasser were going minutes between sentences.

The hike out to the preserve boundary went smoothly, although Nate imagined he might use a different word for the return trip given that they'd be going up the mountain. They transitioned to night-vision glasses after an hour. The biggest obstacle came about two kilometers in, when they reached the end of their starting valley and had to descend a hundred-meter escarpment without so much as a hover boot. They'd trained for that, though, both in general and for that exact face, and so even if it required some physical exertion and attention to detail, it wasn't that difficult. Crossing the creek they were using a guide without getting soaked proved more frustrating. 

The dense forest of the preserve transitioned into more pastoral surroundings several hours in. This area was mostly farms and ranches that supported a textile industry and kept the shipyards fed with fresh food to supplement whatever the dubious Cardassian replicators could cough up. The platoon remained mostly under cover, sticking close to the trees around the creek, until they once more entered light woodlands surrounding the sensor control center. 

The base itself was circular and situated in a small plain flatten out of the rolling hills around it. There was a low outer wall with six watchtowers, and internal walls further divided it into three distinct sectors: one for residences and administration, one for power generation and other utilities, and the third holding a small forest of antennae that connected the control center to the sensor platforms scattered throughout the system. While for the most part the land had been cleared back a few hundred meters from the outer perimeter, there was an exception, a berm that ran parallel to the creek. It was there that Nate found a spot to lay down and observe the base, while the other men spread out and did the same from a dozen other vantage points. 

They were doing fine for time, so Nate allowed the platoon plenty of time to do some recon. Waiting an hour also let one of the planet's moons drop below the horizon, leaving nothing but starlight illuminating the area outside the base. Brad came and went several times, gathering reports from the others until a clear picture of what they were facing emerged.

"I see two main patrol loops, one along the outer fence on ten-minute intervals and then another near the main power hub," Brad whispered, sketching it in the dirt. "Fixed guards at the gates and watchtowers, plus at the main command center and power core."

"Ray, anything to worry about with the perimeter sensors?" Nate asked. 

He shook his head. "I didn't see any new equipment that wasn't in the intel."

"We'll go with Entry Point B, then. I make it five minutes until the best gap in the patrol?" At Brad's confirmatory nod, he continued, "We are at seventeen hours, twenty-two minutes on the mission clock. That puts us just under twelve hours until the go point for the rest of the ground assault. You know what to do if you don't hear from us by then."

"Destroy the sensor systems, retrieve your asses, and acquire transport back to the extraction zone."

Nate was sure he was just going through the motions at this point, because they'd had this conversation a dozen times in private, and once you got past the deadpan humor, the constant sass, and general disrespect for authority, Brad was a professional to the core. He'd follow the real plan. Still, Nate said, "You will finish the mission, and then get the platoon home. Everything else is secondary. Is that clear?"

Brad held eye contact with him for a few seconds before saying, "Yes, sir. Good hunting."

"We'll see you on the other side. Ray?"

"Good to go." He grinned and patted Brad on the shoulder. "I know this is going to be hard, but try not to do anything stupid while I'm not around to supervise."

"I'll manage." Brad raised his head to peak over the berm. "Your window's opening. Move when I give the signal."

About thirty seconds later, he counted down from three with his fingers and then waved them ahead. Together Nate and Ray bounded across the berm and slid down the other side. Next was the most dangerous segment, a sprint across two dozen meters of flat ground and short-cut dirty that was potentially visible to anyone patrolling the of the wall. From there they dropped into a soggy-bottomed ditch, where they walked low through head-height weeds.

Under normal circumstances, a quick approach like this would be foolhardy, but they had a few advantages on their side. The orbital scan was the big one, but Starfleet Intelligence had managed to interview one of the Bajoran slaves who had worked on the construction. That interview had turned up their most important ally: drainage. 

Specifically, bad drainage. 

Whoever had designed the base had almost certainly been from the Lakra region of Cardassia Prime, the seat of the central government and birthplace of 'true' Cardassian culture as defined said government. It was a humid area, but given to regular light rains, not the frequent spring torrents that this area receive. After the fourth or fifth time the base had flooded, the commandant had ordered some ad hoc changes to the grounds, ones not accounted for by the security plans. Hence the berm, which kept out flood waters from the creek but let intruders lurk unseen, and a ditch that ran right up to a culvert leading under the security field. 

So much for the vaunted efficiency of the military government.

A little plaspuddy quickly and silently burned through the steel grate barring passage through the culvert, and from there they crawled side by side through a hundred dusty meters in darkness so pitch-black that even their night vision gear had trouble resolving clear shapes. At one point something dark and fuzzy burst out of a side channel to chitter angrily at them and then ran right over Ray, who swore quietly. Finally, after several checks on his tricorder, Ray tapped Nate on the shoulder.

"This is the spot." He stuck his hand out past Nate and tapped the wall. "Ten degrees down, about five left. I'd say setting twelve, twenty seconds."

"Got it." Nate pulled his hand phaser from its holster and adjusted the beam intensity. "Watch your eyes."

The culvert filled with orange light as he fired, the beam hissing and carving away at the wall beside him. A narrow tunnel formed, walls red-hot at first but cooling quickly. Nate cut the beam as directed, then gave it a couple more quick bursts to drill the last few centimeters until he could clearly see a dimly lit maintenance hallway beyond. It was a tight enough squeeze that Nate had to unclip his rifle and hold it out ahead as he crawled and wiggled his way through, nearly taking a header in the process as the shaft terminated about a meter above the floor at the other end. 

"So far, so good," Nate said as he helped Ray out. He pulled out a sonic wand from his vest and ran it across his boots and lower legs, vibrating loose the mud and dirt there so he wouldn't leave footprints. He did Ray as well while he was down there.

"Get my back," Ray said, turning around. "I think that thing pissed on me."

There was indeed a damp something on his pack, although Ray was off about the nature of the waste. Nate buzzed it off, and then for good measure he turned Ray around and zapped some crusted mud from his hair. "There. You'll look nice when they catch us."

"When my mom told me to always wear clean underwear in case the cops caught me, I don't think she meant the Jem'hadar."

Nate looked up and down the tunnel. It was little more than a bare synthcrete hallway with some piping running along the ceiling. Calling it deserted would be an understatement; Nate wasn't sure even cleaning robots had come down there in the last decade. 

"Looks like intel was right for once," Nate said as they proceeded in the direction leading deeper into the residential sector of the base, rifles in ready position. They'd been told this area had been started as part of an expansion, then left unfinished after budget cuts cancelled the project. "If the rest holds up, this should be easy."

"I'm not even saying anything."

"It's the twenty-fourth century, Ray. We've moved past superstitions about jinxes."

"First off, you are a Ranger. Officer or not you are legally required to believe in bad luck," Ray spat. They reached a sealed security door at the end of the hall, and Ray knelt down to examine the locking mechanism. "Second, there are telepaths, probability machines, and mystical energy beings. Discounting bad luck seems like poor science. This thing's a piece of shit, I can open it whenever."

Nate pulled his tricorder from its spot opposite his phaser. Normally it could tell him where every insect in a hundred meters was. In passive receive-only mode, it gave him a general outline of the hall immediately beyond the door and suggestions of a few rooms. The lack of any thermal signatures or vibrations from footsteps should mean that there was no one within a few dozen meters, but a stationary guard might not show.

"On three."

The door whined open and they popped through together, Nate going left-high and Ray right-low. There was no one out there to be impressed by their coordination. This was a more standard Cardassian corridor, identical to countless others on military installations, space stations, and starships. By human standards it was dimly lit and a bit on the humid side. Subtle wear patterns in the carpeting suggested it did see at least a little foot traffic. Not much, though: this was an underground maintenance level, where the lower ranks could move about unseen without disturbing their betters.

They began to slowly creep along, Ray in the lead and Nate watching their rear. This was the part of the mission they had the least information on. They knew the location of the main buildings, but the exact configuration of underground passages between them was less clear. Their inside source's information could be plausibly put together in almost two dozen configurations. That meant pausing at doors and access panels to check labels so they could find the crawlway that was supposed to take them directly to the operations sector, bypassing the main security checkpoints.

They'd locate it any moment now.

Nate signaled a stop and they squeezed against a wall behind a support beam. "If we take another left turn, we'll be going in a circle."

"It's more of a rectangle with tumors, but yeah." Ray shook his head. "I don't know where the fuck this power junction is. We should have hit it five minutes ago."

Nate leaned out to glance around and listen carefully. He wasn't entirely sure, but it seemed like he could just make out distant bootsteps headed their way. Middle of the night or not, this was a military installation, so someone would be on duty. Wandering around was a good way to get noticed. 

"Over here." Nate lead Ray back two doors and into a side room labeled 'supplies'. Junk pile seemed more accurate, as there were dozens of rows of shelves, each filled with spare parts and partially-dismantled devices. They moved as far inside as they could, out of sight from the door. "Can you get our bearings with your tricorder?"

"Probably. Even on passive mode the utilities are going to show up. Problem is that it's going to take a while to gather enough information to put together a useful map. Twenty or thirty minutes, just for the immediate surroundings."

Nate grimaced. He'd been afraid that might be the answer. Staying in one spot might still be better than spending the same amount of time searching out there, but if what if the route they were looking for was outside what the sensors could reach? 

"Program an active scan, but just the bare minimum," he ordered. "Only the wavelengths absolutely necessary, and for as short a time as you can."

Ray nodded. He pulled out his tricoder, put his back to the wall, and slid down it until he was sitting. "One ping only, gotcha."

"Excuse me?"

"Okay, so my grandma loves early information age dramas, they're purely two-dimensional if you can believe - you know what, I'll show it to you."

"I look forward to it."

"You say that now, but for some reason most people don't come back for seconds. I'm not sure if it's the films or the company."

"I was under the impression Brad enjoyed both."

For a brief moment, Ray's fingers stilled in their relentless tapping at the tricorder's controls, before resuming with greater ferocity. "Brad tolerates me and my weird-ass hobbies."

"I'm fairly sure he likes you. Certainly more than most people, possibly including his parents. I might even go so far as to say he's affectionate."

"Homes, the Iceman does not feel the Earth-human emotion of 'affection'. Your perspective is skewed because you're basically the one person out of the trillions in the Federation he actually respects."

Nate was unprofessional enough to admit, at least internally, that it made him a little sad to hear Ray say that. It was true that Brad wasn't exactly the most emotionally expressive person in the world, at least when it came to things other than appreciating well-executed tactics or bitching about command, but Nate stood by his description of Brad's interactions with Ray. He may have been hand-picked for his value to Brad's team and later platoon - Nate had no illusions about who owned it, even if he was in charge - but that applied to several people and most of them hadn't grown on Brad like a fungus. 

He was also self-aware enough to notice the same level of affectionate fungus-like growth on himself. Nate had become aware of the existence of Corporal Person about ten minutes after joining the platoon. It would have been very hard not to notice him. Ray, the loudmouthed shadow of Brad, had slipped into his perception with surprising stealth. The last few weeks had allowed Nate, or maybe forced, to pay attention to the person casting that shadow. He'd found he liked what he saw. 

Which, of course, created its own set of problems. It was great that Ray was witty, confident, and subtly intelligent, not to mention good-looking in the right light and if you had a beer or two. It was less ideal to be making that kind of observation in the middle of a Cardassian base, no matter how good Nate was at multi-tasking. Starfleet was the product of many military traditions, some with different ideas about warrior bonding than Earth's professional armies of ages past, but even the more liberal among them would look askance at standing in a closet and admiring your man's skilled hands. 

He had to chuckle at how ridiculous he was being.

"What's so funny?" Ray asked, still focused intently on the tricorder screen.

"Nothing. Just amused by some thoughts I'm having."

"Not about me, I hope, because that'd be a bit ominous under the circumstances."

"Yes," Nate admitted, "but the funny part's mostly about our location and some historical irony."

Now Ray did look up. "I know a lot of strange people, LT, but sometimes you manage to reach the top of the list. Do I even want to know how I'm being historically ironic?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I might fill you in when we get back to the ship. Maybe during the film."

"Fine, be mysterious." Ray clambered up to his feet and tucked his tricorder away. "I think I figured out where we need to go. We're under the rec center, right? Looks like some dumbfuck installed a holosuite and relocated one of the power mains to do it, so the line I was looking for's fifty meters that way."

"So we need to head over there?"

"No, we need to backtrack, we missed our turn because the hatch didn't say what it should."

"Alright. Let's come out of the closet, then."

"Really, really strange."

As Ray said, when they retreated and then took a different turn, they quickly found a hatch that opened up onto a maintenance crawlway. It wasn't quite large enough for them to pass through side by side, so Ray took the lead. They spent quite a while pretending to be gerbils, or maybe ferrets given their general proportions, as they crawled their way through a maze of tubes and ladderways, generally but not always toward the main data processing center located under the antenna array. Every so often Ray would check the various conduits and devices lining the sides of the tunnel, until eventually he saw something he liked and stopped. 

Ray started to sit up, then thought better of it, having tried that in sims and gotten bruises for his trouble. There was some muffled cursing as Ray tried to extract a tool box from the side pouch of his backpack, until he relented and let Nate do it for him. He unbolted a panel and spent a minute studying what was inside, before picking up his multitool and poking around at something Nate couldn't see.

"Do you need me to come up and give you a hand?" Nate asked as various little fiddly bits were either extracted from or inserted into the wall.

Ray grinned down at him. "A hand? LT, you were distracting enough in the last run."

"I guess I can stay down here and help you orally."

"Now I know you're fucking with me. If you could just pass me my tools when I ask, that'd be great."

"Happy to be of service. Just tell me which of your tools you want me to handle."

"You're going to get me fucking electrocuted."

"Try to avoid that until after you've done your part of the mission."

Ray didn't reply this time, so Nate lapsed into silence as well so he could concentrate. The next several minutes were largely quiet save the whine of drills and laser cutters, and the occasional murmured request for a different tool. Finally Ray put his equipment back into its cases and closed up the panel.

"So there's basically two possible outcomes at this point. I'm pretty sure I've disabled the security systems between here and the data center. If not, the first sign will be one of us stepping face-first into a forcefield and then a bunch of angry Cardies showing up."

"I'll go first, then," Nate said, crawling forward and starting to squeeze past Ray's bony ass.

"Hey, no, it's my work," Ray replied, squirming and rolling around to see him more clearly, "I should be the one testing it."

Nate paused when they were face to face. "You're choosing now to complain about an officer leading from the front?"

"It's just practical. I'm more likely to spot something still active than you."

"I'm concerned that you'd spot it by burning your face off for the second time in as many months."

It was hard to actually see, that close together, but Nate could feel Ray doing his damnedest not to smile. "That is a low blow. I was the victim there. A hapless bystander."

"I've been assured of that, many times." 

Nate started crawling again, while Ray made exasperated noises and followed along. They spent another twenty minutes crawling through the maze of maintenance tubes. No one's hands or face got fried in the process, and ultimately they descended a final ladder and were left facing a completely nondescript door, just large enough for a single person to get through. Ray hesitantly tapped the open button and took a half step back as it slid to the side. 

It was hard to call the space beyond a server 'room'. It had four walls and a ceiling, but the scope exceeded the normal definition. If it had been turned ninety degrees to be long rather than tall it might be a hall; silo might work but it had the wrong connotations. The Vulcan word sheycharu would be apt, even with its implications of crypt, but neither English or its bastard offspring Federation Standard had that level of precision. 

"I can fucking feel you nerding out," Ray whispered, almost inaudible, as the two of them carefully advanced inside. It was downright chilly, well into sweater weather even for humans, much less Cardassians, and mostly lit by computer screens and dim emergency lights far overhead. Rising from the ground floor they were on were six triangular towers, arranged to point inwards and form a hexagon. Each was maybe four meters on a side; it was hard to make out exactly where they ended because they were made from dark metal and mostly visible thanks to rows of flickering lights along their faces. Every four meters or so there were catwalks surrounding the towers, joined by rickety-looking ladders at the corners, until some fifteen levels above they disappeared through a grated ceiling. This was the heart of the sensor network: there were hundreds of individual detection satellites out in space, and a building full of technicians and analysts overhead, but the magic happened in here.

Somewhere, amid the tens of thousands of processor and memory units these towers held, were the dozen they were supposed to replace. 

There was a computer console at the base of each tower. Ray spent a minute plugging his customized hacking unit into one, cracked his knuckles, and sat down. He glanced over the semi-circular keyboard, found an icon in one corner, and held it down until the computer restarted.

"We're doing good on time," Nate said after checking his watch. "If getting turned around for a few minutes is the worst your jinx can do, we'll be flying home ahead of schedule."

Ray glared at him. "If you're set on fucking with me, can we got back to sexual innuendo? It made me less uncomfortable."

"You're my subordinate, Ray, I couldn't possibly say anything sexually suggestive, no matter how attractive you are."

"You're terrible."

"I really am sorry. Sometimes I get chatty under stress. Maybe I'll try my spiel about relative safety next."

Ray stood up, still holding his jacked-in logic probe, and pointed at the computer. "Your turn to be useful, LT."

"I'd like to think I've pretty useful already." Nate took the chair Ray'd vacated and took a moment to look over the displays. It all appeared to be pretty similar to the version they'd trained on, save for a slight change in the OS theme colors. 

"Pretty eye candy, maybe, but otherwise you haven't done much even Trombley couldn't."

After a few false starts as Nate adjusted to reading and typing Cardassian, he began pulling up star charts and sensor logs. He started with key reference markers, mostly stars and other landmarks that he could easily remember both the Federation and Cardassian names for. Cardassia Prime, naturally, and Bajor in the opposite direction; Minos Korva, Ferenginar, Chintoka, Amargosa; more distant objects like Sagittarius A*, the Carina Nebula, and Deneb. Then came the inductive work: if that was Dorvan, and that was Setlik, then the A-type star halfway between them was NGI-9924. Slowly he assembled a list of key points describing a narrow cone pointing from Torros out toward the Badlands, where the fleet was assembling for its final sprint.

"I think I've got the right search narrowed down," Nate said after about six minutes. "You ready?"

"Go ahead."

Nate set the computer running a series of system tests, simulating scans of that particular region of space. That fake data was fed into the computer cores looming above them, and in turn to individual processor nodes throughout them. Nate didn't fully understand what happened next. It wasn't a purely deterministic assignment, where each node always got data from the same sensors pointed in one particular direction, but it wasn't random either, and if you watched the inputs and results long enough you could figure out the algorithm. The word 'quantum' had been used a lot. From the quiet pleased noises Ray kept making, something had to be happening other than a lot of meaningless text scrolling across a screen.

"I've got our list," Ray said finally. He turned his screen so Nate could see it. There were long hex codes matched up with Cardassian script. "Does this look like a rack location to you?"

"It's a combination of a primary color - a Cardassian one, anyway - then a letter and a number." Nate pulled out an old-fashioned pen and notebook from a pocket on his vest so he could copy them down. He slipped his night vision glasses back on. "I think I see a label on the next level up, basically Aqua-L."

He touched Ray's screen and rearranged the codes into alphabetical order. It looked like the indicated processors were spread across all six cores and its entire vertical length. They climbed up to the first level, the ladder's rails and rungs rattling the whole way, and started hunting for the correct rack. Up close it was more clear that what looked like solid structures from below was mainly just framework. Each side had three rows of computer racks, while the center was mostly empty save for a tangle of cables leading to a central utility trunk holding power, cooling, and data lines. It was at least neatly organized and labeled, making it easy to find unit Gold-Kerah-3445.

Ray pressed a button on the exterior and it slid out. Most of it held hundreds of optical data storage rods, while at the top was a power and connector bus. That was plugged in at one end to the central core and at the other to a metal box identical to the one Admiral Soltani had shown them weeks before - and to the ones currently sitting inside their backpacks.

Ray got his multitool from his belt and started unscrewing the processor box, and as he did Nate went ahead and pulled the carrying case full of replacements out of his pack. The optical rods blinked off as Ray unplugged the original, and back on as the replacement was inserted. 

The entire process took about thirty seconds. Even having seen it in dozens of simulations, Nate still thought it was anticlimatic. 

"So the neat thing is," Ray said as he worked on number six, the silence apparently getting to him, "as long as we choose the right processors, we only need to replace a handful to get the job done. Eight might have been enough. It basically spoofs the error-checking algorithm so that the system ignores Federation and Klingon warp signatures."

"Mmm-hmmm." Nate was pretty sure he'd heard this explanation enough times that he could recite it in his sleep, but if talking it through made Ray more comfortable, he wouldn't interrupt.

"I added my own little trick, basically tampered with the outgoing data to cause memory overflows in other processors checking the same sensor input, so it's more likely these will be used and trigger the spoofing."

"Sounds clever."  
.  
"I like to think so." Ray looked down. "This is a lot further up than it seemed from the floor."

"Yeah." It dark enough below that it almost looked like a bottomless pit.

"You'd think there'd be a better guard rail." He shook the thin metal strip that served as one, which visibly wobbled.

"I guess that's Cardassian health and safety standards for you."

They were just finishing the last, uppermost processor when the lights turned on overhead. Somewhere on the level above a door whined open and several sets of booted feet walked in. Before the door had closed behind them again, Nate and Ray both darted to the side of the core opposite the noises, pressing hard up against the machinery. They listened silently for a minute, phasers aimed upwards at the sources of the vague shadows being cast down, as at least three men chatted and grumbled about the hour. They were technicians, from the sound of it, and not ones there for some unexpected service call but for a scheduled test. Thus far they seemed oblivious to the humans beneath their feet, focused on terminals near the side of the room so far.

Nate took a moment to consider their situation. The ladders were right out, too noisy and too exposed. Someone was bound to investigate and then call for security, assuming they weren't just shot down while sitting ducks. Climbing down the interior of the core might work, but they were bound to damage one of those cables on their way through, and if they tangled it'd be game over. They might be able to shoot the Cardassians through the grating, but as tempting and stereotypical as that might be, it wasn't a sure thing and hiding the bodies would be a bitch. The tech weren't likely to leave anytime soon, because presumably they'd come in well before the day shift for a reason, and sooner or later someone was going to look down at the wrong angle.

It only took a few seconds to narrow down his options to the most viable: the climbing gear they'd used to descend the cliff earlier that evening. He caught Ray's attention, patted the clip where the rope reel could attach to their vests, and signed, "We'll fast-rope down."

Ray took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. "You are joking, interrogative?"

"No."

"Rails will fall off." Ray waved at the aluminum-foil safety feature.

"Clamp to the catwalk, it can hold us." 

"Maybe."

"Best chance to get out."

"When we splat, my last words will be I told you so."

Nate smiled. "Don't jinx us."

Very carefully, he got down on hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the catwalk. The beam holding it all up was distressingly thin, but presumably it was made to hold up an entire maintenance team. He secured one end of his rope to it with a magnetic clamp and triple-checked that the reel at the other end was firmly attached to his vest. A glance at Ray showed him doing the same, determined but also vaguely queasy. Nate gave him a thumbs-up, a grin more confident than he felt, and then rolled off the side. The line caught moments later and began to spool off, leaving him dropping at about meter a second. Ray didn't wait for him to reach bottom before following. 

Almost a minute later they finally hit the floor. A flip of a switch turned off the clamps and the ropes came slithering down with long, raspy thud. They didn't wait to see if anyone noticed, scooping up the bundled line and running for the exit with it in their arms. 

"Fuck my life," Ray said as soon as the door was closed behind them.

"Entirely automated and unattended ninety-eight percent of the time," Nate agreed. "I was assured of this."

They took a minute to properly reel their lines in while letting their hearts get back toward baseline, then high-tailed it off through the tunnels as fast as their abused knees would take them. It was much easier going in that direction, with no need to check direction or pause to fiddle with security. Naturally it was in the last twenty meters before the exit that they ran into their next obstacle, almost literally. 

It happened so fast that the Cardie was dead before Nate even realized what was happening. They turned the last corner before the door they'd entered through and were halfway through it when a Cardassian soldier came around the other end. He glanced up from the PADD he was reading, eyes just starting to widen when Nate's phaser burst caught him in the chest. He dropped without a noise. Nate and Ray ran to the end of the corridor and checked that the cross hall was clear, then Ray covered him as he dragged the body back to the door and out into the disused expansion hall. 

"That's some good shooting," Ray observed. It was, too; there was a tiny charred hole right through the heart, the sort of textbook marksmanship most Starfleet officers never bothered to reach. You didn't need it when you could count on the stun or kill settings plus the smart aim. Nate's phaser had been set in between, a thermal effect not normally used for combat because it didn't reliably stop targets unless you hit something vital. It also didn't trip most sensors.

"Thanks." Nate stood back up. "I'll take care of the body. See if you can jam that door in a way that looks like normal wear and tear."

"Sure thing, LT. Be with you in a minute."

Nate took the body by the wrist and started dragging, until he reached the shaft he'd carved through the wall. He took a moment to examine the man. It was always hard to tell between species, but he looked about Nate's age and his uniform said he was a glinn, something similar to an ensign or lieutenant depending on sub-grade. His PADD showed nothing important, just duty rosters for a small infantry unit. As far as Nate could tell, he was just some poor, unlucky son of a bitch on his first assignment. 

Well, it wasn't the time or the place to dwell on that. Philosophy and reflection, his drill instructors had said, was the sort of thing that could wait until you had a full belly and free time. He adjusted his phaser and vaporized the body.

It took a bit of effort to get up the shaft and into the culvert, but it wasn't long before they were back outside and crawling through the drainage channel. A few minutes of observation with a collapsible periscope confirmed that they patrols were still in the same routine. As soon as the gap opened, they were scrambling up the berm, down the other side, and dashing for the forest. The first hints of pink were just starting to show around the horizon as they made it through the treeline.

"Not your best time, sir," Brad said, seeming to materialize out of the shadow of a tree. "But not your worst, either."

"Are you trying to get yourself shot?" Ray hissed. Even in the dark pre-twilight, it was easy to see that Brad didn't think that was likely to succeed. He took up position at Nate's right, opposite Ray, as they kept walking. 

"Everything fine out here?" Nate asked.

"No changes or unusual movements. You?"

"There may be a complication."

"He totally smoked a Cardie with a snap shot," Ray interjected. "You'd have approved."

"Hopefully no one realizes he's missing until it's too late, but I want us to keep moving until we're well within the preserve."

Brad nodded. Around them, the platoon was slowly coalescing out of the darkness bit by bit. "If you think it's safe, after an hour or so I'd like to take a rest, give people a chance to relax a little and get some food down."

"In case you don't realize, that means Brad needs to take a shit."

"Thanks for translating," Nate said. "I'm impressed by your guts. Most people can't move ratpacks that fast."

"I think he tried the gagh."

"Shut up and be stealthy, Ray."

"Aye, Staff Sergeant."

They got a pretty spectacular view as the sun rose over the mountains, accompanied by a cool breeze from the west. Around them the forest came alive with noise and color. Flowers unfurled from the tips of tree branches, and small little creatures started to flutter between them. Not birds, from what he could see, but some sort of bat-like lizard. Nate wished he'd had time to look up more about the planet's wildlife; with so much technical and operational information to absorb, he'd handed the environmental safety research off to Brad, who'd delegated it off further to whichever corporal hadn't said 'not it' fast enough. 

"Nice country," Brad commented when they did eventually stop for a late breakfast, a dozen kilometers into the forest. They'd found a reasonably secluded gulley where a side stream met the creek. Tactically it wasn't the most defensible position, leaving them strung out, but it offered a lot of concealment. The two of them had set up shop on a boulder at the lower end, hidden by a strange red bush. Ray was a few meters behind, stuffing his face with a chocolate ratpack that Brad had tossed him and still trying to carry on a conversation with Hasser despite that.

Nate, for his part, hadn't even realized that a cherry pie version existed until he bit into the bar Brad gave him.

"It reminds me a bit of the mountains back home," Nate said. "Just with more scales and less feathers."

"Ah, yes, the famous mountains of the Chesapeake estuary."

Nate gave his arm a light smack. "The Appalachians. Did I ever tell you I hiked the entire trail the summer between secondary school and college?

"I'm sure that's very impressive, sir."

"It was at the time. Thirty-five hundred klicks of rough terrain in about three months. Not bad now, but as a stick-figure eighteen year old? I was pretty proud of myself."

"I completed the khas-wan survival test, walking through Vulcan's Forge without supplies, at thirteen," Brad said, utterly deadpan. "As an allowance to my human biology, I scheduled it for winter, when the daytime temperature averaged only thirty-five degrees."

"Of course you did," Nate replied. The trouble with Brad was that even when Nate was sure he was fucking with him, he'd deny it completely straight-faced and claim he was just sharing a similar anecdote. "If you'd like to compare the experiences first-hand, I can show you a few nice spots next time we have home leave."

"In case you've forgotten, we don't have the same home."

Ray leaned over. "Didn't your parents move back to California?"

"They did," Brad acknowledged. "Apparently Vulcan's gravity finally defeated their aged bones."

"Don't be discouraged by him, LT. Promise some good surfing and he'll show up."

"Stop eavesdropping on your superiors, Corporal. And wipe your chin, I don't even know how someone can make a mess out of a meal bar."

"I understand there are a number of good beaches within a few minute's flight time, or a bit longer if you stick to a bike," Nate said with a little smile. 

"I'm not quite that easily bribe, lieutenant. And I suspect both our schedules are going to be booked full for a while."

"True." Nate lowered his voice a bit more to make sure no unwanted ears could overhear. "Speaking of schedules, we need to get him into advanced tech classes."

Brad contemplated that silently for a minute. "The sort he can do on the holodeck, or the kind he has to go away for?"

"Whichever we can drag him kicking and screaming to. He's got a lot of untapped potential."

"If we send him to training school, we might not get him back."

Brad was right, of course. While Starfleet liked keeping proven teams together, it didn't care as much about junior enlisted, and it was unlikely to keep a slot open for months and another unit might have higher need. That didn't mean a transfer back was impossible, but it wasn't a sure thing. 

"As much as you and I find his skills useful, and enjoy his lively personality," Nate said, "what's good for him and good for the service do have to come first."

"I'm sure that's all you'd miss."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Staff Sergeant."

"I'm referring to the fact that you look at him like a sehlat who's spotted a tasty treat. Or more accurately scented another one going into -" Brad abruptly broke off. Something drew his narrow-eyed attention out toward the grassy clearing past their gulley.

"Brad?" Nate said, feeling uneasy. He unslung his rifle and looked in the direction Brad was staring.

"There's someone coming," he whispered back.

Nate rolled sideways off the boulder, Brad landing beside him a moment later. Ray glanced over, startled, then tapped Hasser on the shoulder and gave him a little shove before scurrying into a shallow hollow between the roots of a tree. Silent hand signals were passed down the line and with a faint rustling of foliage the rangers found cover. 

As the sound of conversation got more distinct, Nate tried to get a good view, finally having to get up on one knee to look over the boulder and pear past the lower branches of the bush. Brad did the same. A few seconds later the source of those noises became apparent: a group of Cardassians and Jem'hadar.

For a heart-stopping moment Nate thought they'd been discovered, but he quickly realized he was wrong. There was no indication this was an actual Dominion scouting force. It was the wrong size of unit, for one thing, maybe a dozen people total. For another, none of them had scanners out or weapons up and ready.

Leading the group was a female Cardassian in a gul's uniform. She had a long braid trailing down her back, and some sort of thin rifle slung under one shoulder. To her left was a Vorta, a good head shorter than she was, and from the way he was delicately picking his way through the forest, he didn't seem to be enjoying himself. At her right was some sort of wiry animal, like some mad genetic engineer had crossed a hyena and a crocodile. Behind them were a couple junior Cardassian officers, also with rifles, and four enlisted men who had bulky packs and more lizard-things on leashes. Four Jem'hadar trailed along near the sides. 

"They're not here for us," Nate whispered into Brad's ear. 

He nodded ever so slightly. "I think those long arms are slug throwers. Hunters?"

"Yeah."

It looked like the hostiles were paralleling the creek, but in the opposite direction the platoon had been moving. If they stayed put a while, they'd probably be well out of sight in fifteen or twenty minutes. Just letting them walk past was irritating, but that was just the nature of reconnaissance. On the other hand, there was an opportunity there.

The Vorta was useless, because they usually killed themselves upon capture. Jem'hadar were worse. The soldiers and low-ranking officers were unlikely to know much. But that gul, she was interesting. Cardassia had well-defined gender roles and didn't take kindly to people who tried to step outside them. Combat was a man's job. At the same time, women were the scientists and engineers, and filled those roles even in the military. Female officers of command rank were either captains of exploration ships - or spy ships, which for the Cardies was pretty much the same thing - or in charge of important technical projects. Things like, for example, integrating Dominion technology into old Cardassian junkers. 

"High-value target. Take her?" Brad signed to him, apparently having the same thought.

It was tempting. Bringing a prisoner back would just be a cherry on top of a well-executed mission. The Dominion might not even realize she was captured rather than dead, making any intelligence gathered even more valuable. At the same time, there were a lot of ways for a snatch and grab to go wrong. Nate doubted even half of the platoon had clear shots, if that, and there was no way to coordinate targeting to guarantee a good ambush. If any of the enemy had time to call for help, they'd be well and truly fucked. Even a wide-angle beam wasn't guaranteed with so many trees and bushes to block line of effect.

"No," Nate replied. "Stay in cover, let them pass." Brad nodded and relayed that on back.

The group paused about two dozen meters away, near enough Nate could just make out the conversation. 

"... surely it would be easier to just farm the animals if you're insistent on real meat," the Vorta was saying. 

"Wild game has an entirely different taste and texture, Keevan," the gul replied with a light, melodic voice. "It's also very difficult to replicate properly before you raise that objection. Besides, it's not just about the meal."

"Then what else?"

"Stewardship, for one thing. There's few natural predators left, so the velks will overpopulate if they're not hunted."

"Hmmm."

"And it's also about the experience! Being outdoors, in touch with our surroundings and the lives or our ancestors. The challenge of stalking game and using only primitive weapons to take them it down. I'm sure the Second agrees with me, don't you - Remar'Eklan?"

There was an odd hitch in her voice. She was looking down at something in the mud near the stream bank. Her lizard began to growl, a deep and throaty noise echoed by the others, and its head swung to stare straight at Nate. The gul followed its gaze and Nate thought for the briefest of moments their eyes met.

"Shit," Brad whispered. Almost simultaneously they both pulled their triggers. 

All hell broke loose around them. One Jem'hadar went down as Nate's phaser beam caught him, but two returned fire almost immediately and another just vanished. Most of the Cardassians managed to fumble out their sidearms or dive for cover, and within seconds the air was filled with flashes of light, the screech of beam weapons, and the howls of lizards. The Vorta turned and ran, only to be hit square in the back by a shot from Hasser. Tree trunks exploded as fire went wide. Brad cursed as one of the lizard things charged up snapping at him, even as Nate had to duck back to shield his face from flying shards of rock as several projectiles ricocheted off the boulder. 

It was the only reason Nate was looking the right direction to catch movement in the underbrush. Something invisible was running down the hillside straight at Ray's back. Nate shouted out a warning and leaped in that direction, swinging out wildly with his rifle. He connected with something that turned out to be the last Jem'hadar, which swiped at him with his bayonet as his invisibility shroud failed. Nate danced back but felt it graze across his stomach. The soldier pulled back for another try but was thrown back in a shower of sparks as Ray shot him right in the face. Nate turned and smiled; Ray failed to return it.

"I'm fine," Nate assured Ray. He patted his stomach and his hand came away red. "I think it's just a surface wound."

He fell over.


	4. Chapter 4

**Alpar Province, Torros III   
Stardate 50977.1**

"I'm telling you, it was fucking awesome," Ray said. "The Cardie just stepped around the corner and then, bam, dead! And it was on setting five, you know how small a hole that makes?"

"It's like he's got recon training or something," Walt replied dryly. 

"So do some of the other officers, supposedly, but I haven't seen any of them make a shot like that."

"What about Lt. T'kel on Karrelon? She blew a Klingon away at four hundred meters."

"She's a Vulcan with sniper training, of course she did. Jesus, are you just going to nitpick or can I tell the story?" 

"I'm not nitpicking." Walt frowned. "How did you get chocolate and I got salmon?"

Ray shrugged and finished the last of his meal bar. He hoped the hunger suppressant kicked in fast; twenty-four hours of calories or not, it never felt filling. "Brad gave it to me."

"Brad gave you a chocolate ratpack?"

"Yeah. Why, what's weird about that?"

"Nothing."

"He gave one to the LT too."

"Course he did."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fuck, was Brad basically giving them dog treats for a job well done? It wouldn't be the weirdest way he'd found to avoid explicitly expressing feelings. 

Before Walt could explain himself, Nate scared the bejeezus out of Ray by falling off the side of the big-ass rock he was sitting on. Brad followed. Ray, no idiot, got Walt's attention and pushed him towards where Trombley was sitting on a log and contemplating mass murder or whatever the fuck went through his head when given time to think. Ray found himself a bit of concealment behind a big-ass tree, not that it would do him much good if someone hit it with a powerful enough beam. 

He sat there a while, phaser ready, trying to figure out what the fuck was even going on. Brad and Nate were whispering in each other's ears like a pair of teenagers scoping out possibilities for prom, occasionally deigning to flash some signs back to everyone else. Apparently the Dominion, not content with making Ray crawl around for hours, had decided to ruin his first meal in a day. Typical. 

Then the shooting started. 

Ray couldn't see a fucking thing and was mostly firing blind, because there were ferns or some shit between him and the bad guys. He also couldn't move somewhere with a better view, because there were disruptor pulses and phaser beams all over the place. Ray was basically trapped between an unknown number of Cardies and twenty-odd assholes who'd spent all night hoping to shoot some spoonheads and didn't have much better vision than he did. Walt he trusted to show some trigger discipline; Trombley, not so much. 

Actually, it looked like Trombley was being surprisingly methodical in placing his shots. Good for him. 

Nate yelled something at Ray and then ran past him. Ray turned just in time to see a fucking Jem'hadar try to gut Nate. Ray got his rifle up and shot the fucker before he could give it a second go. For a moment it seemed like everything was fine, then Nate turned around and there was blood all over his uniform. 

"I'm fine," Nate told Ray with a woozy smile. He patted his stomach and his hand came away red. "I think it's just a surface wound."

Ray barely managed to catch him as he took a half-step and fell forward. He eased him down to the forest floor and gave himself exactly one second to stare at the wide gash just below the line of Nate's tac vest.

"Medtech!" Ray shouted as he scrambled to pull his field trauma kit out of a pocket. "I need a medtech! Walt, find Doc!"

There was a quiet, "Oh, shit," behind Ray, followed by running footsteps. 

The shooting stopped, leaving only an eerie quiet. There was still some shouting further up the gulley, but it sure sounded like the fighting was over and done with. Since Ray was still alive, presumably they'd won.

"Ray, are you hurt?" Brad said, running up a minute later with Doc Bryan in tow. His eyes widened. "Fuck. How bad is it?"

"I really do feel fine," Nate rasped out. 

"That's because of the analgesic," Ray said, holding up that blinking cylinder while still pressing a bandage to Nate's wound with his other hand. Bryan kneeled down with his med kit and tricorder, and started swearing softly under his breath. 

"Sitrep, Sergeant?" Nate asked, resolutely staring up at them and away from what Bryan was doing. 

"All hostiles down, sir. Stafford took some shrapnel to the face and isn't combat-effective, but he's still up."

Nate nodded. "Good. Ray."

"LT?"

"Do a comms check. See if they got a distress call out."

"On it, sir."

"Brad, you have command. Find where they came from, and get us ready to move."

"Sir."

Ray scrambled off toward where the enemy had been. As he ran he pulled out his tricorder and it nearly slipped out his hand. He cursed, wiped as much of the blood off as he could, and opened it up. The other Jem'hadar were closest; they'd tried to charge into the ambush. The Cardassians were more scattered about. One by one, he knelt beside them and checked their communicators. After the last one he relaxed a little, as none of them had been activated in the last couple hours. 

"We're good here," he told Brad when he came up for a report. The Iceman's facade was looking well and truly cracked. That worried Ray even more than the sight of Nate's cut had. It'd mostly been obscured by the blood, but if Brad was that scared then it must have been even worse than he'd thought.

Mrr'sha came loping up. There was blood on her, too, but just around her mouth. Ray didn't even want to know what the little flecks of grey in her fur were.

"Sergeant. You remember the clearing, three hundred meters north of here? There is an aircar, stocked with hunting supplies."

"We'll need to find some way to get rid of it," Brad said, expression clamping back down. "We can vaporize the bodies, but anything we've got that could take out a vehicle that can hold this many people is going to leave a crater an aerial search will spot."

"What kind of car?" Ray asked.

Mrr'sha's ears flicked. "A civilian model, not in the warbook. Something fancy, lots of windows and leather."

"I've got an idea," Ray said, the vague outline of a plan starting to form. "Put the bodies in the skimmer."

"That's a long way to drag corpses. Why?"

"I can rig the autopilot, set it to kill the engines and fly right into a mountain. By the time the Cardies figure out it's sabotage and not a malfunction, the fleet'll be here."

Brad nodded swiftly. "Good plan. Tony! Get some strong guys over here."

"Take me to this thing," Ray said to the pussy cat. 

It was by far the fanciest-ass skimmer he'd ever seen: a glossy black exterior, enough windows to make it feel like it was open air, soft seats, a mini-bar. Basically everything that Reverend Karen talked about when describing the decadence of the outside world in one convenient package. It also had shit security, because he'd rooted its brain and turned the autopilot suicidal within five minutes of opening it up. 

That was great from a tactical standpoint, but from a not-worry-about-Nate one, it meant he no longer had a distraction. 

Doc was just cleaning his hands off when Ray got back. Nate was looking deathly pale, even by his lily-skinned standards. A chunk of his shirt had been cut away, but all the blood was gone save the stains on what was left of his uniform. A big pink bandage ran across his stomach, and an injector pack was strapped to his arm and pumping in drugs and blood. Brad was fretting silently a foot away, hands on his hips.

"He's stable for now," Bryan said. Ray had seen the medic with a lot of different expressions since meeting him, mostly variations of angry, but right now he looked tired. 

"When can we get going again?" Nate asked softly. "Decoy or no decoy, I don't want to hang around."

"You? A few hours, minimum."

"We can't wait that long. Give me a crutch, I can move." The motherfucker pushed himself up to sitting position, then back so he was propped up against a log. 

"Lieutenant, I know it doesn't feel like much, but that's a serious fucking wound."

"You said nothing vital was hit."

"Let me try to get through the drugs here: there is serious vascular and muscle damage and you lost a lot of blood. Right now the only thing holding your guts in are about three layers of spray-skin and a regenerator bandage. You've got so much sedative in you it's amazing you're awake."

"Can you get me mobile anyway?"

"Yes. I can hit you with enough stims to keep you awake and walking. Then, in thirty minutes or an hour, you'll step the wrong way and your intestines are going to spill out. Do me a favor and just rest so I don't have to clean dirt off your innards."

"Understood."

"I'll get a stretcher party formed," Brad said.

Nate shook his head. "No. Find somewhere out of sight to stick me, then take the platoon and return to the extraction point."

"Lieutenant!"

"Carrying a stretcher is going to slow you down too much, even down here in the easy terrain, never mind the ascent up the mountain."

"I'll send Tony ahead with the most the unit, and carry you with a couple volunteers behind them."

"I'll help," Ray immediately said. Various other bystanders immediately followed suit. 

For a moment, Nate locked eyes with Ray, gaze sharp as ever, then did the same with Brad. "Staff Sergeant Colbert. I am ordering you to get yourself and the rest of the men home without me. I'll find my own ride." Brad stood silent, arms crossed. Nate gave him a dozen or so seconds to reply, then added in a tone so icy and harsh even Brad flinched back, "If you are unwilling to follow orders, I will have Sergeant Espera relieve you, stun you, and haul you up that mountain. You're going one way or another."

"Aye, sir," Brad gritted out. He turned to the others. "Stop standing around! I want everyone formed up and ready to go!"

"Thank you, Brad," Nate said, relief washing over his face. "Doc, let's see how much of your med kit you can spare."

Ray waited until Brad was just out of Nate's earshot, then grabbed his arm. "I'm staying with him."

"Absolutely not."

"That's bullshit. He saved my life, I can't leave him."

"And I can't leave you both," Brad hissed back. "He's not wrong, even with two people to carry him the chances of getting up that mountain are almost zero."

"Brad, please." Ray desperately tried to think up an argument. After a moment, something clicked into place. "I've got a plan. I'll take the aircar before sending it off. Head for the caves to the south of here."

"By those ranches," Brad said, eyes narrow and calculating. 

"Yeah. It should keep us off sensors. We'll find some other way offworld."

"There's a landing field nearby that services the base and farms. It's probably got a transporter. If you time it right, you could use it to get up to the fleet when it arrives. Going pad-to-pad should be safe even with jamming."

"Yeah, exactly," Ray said, as if that had been his idea all along, as opposed to just hiding out and figuring the next step later. 

"Fine. Nate said I had to go, nothing about you."

The LT was passed out by the time they got back to him. Bryan was an odd combination of pissed and resigned, which lightened only marginally when they explained what was happening. There was some hasty trading of gear, dumping out anything Ray didn't need in favor of medical equipment and all the extra rations on hand. As Brad and Walt carried Nate to the car on a stretcher, Bryan explained in detail what Ray needed to do to make sure Nate didn't explode like an over-ripe tomato the moment something touched his belly.

Nate's stretcher was very carefully slid into the rear compartment of the aircar, right above the pile of corpses. Ray hastily made sure the manual flight controls still work and powered it up. Just as he was about to close the door, Brad stuck his head inside. 

"I want you to know," Brad said, "that I'm proud of you. I know I don't say it much, and I hope I haven't given you the impression otherwise. I've never regretted having you on my team." 

Ray interrupted him before this unexpected spring thaw could turn into full-on flood, because Ray was already at his stress limit and if he added any more emotional tension he'd break down crying. "Brad. This sounds like a conversation we need to have booze for. But thanks for everything." 

"Take care of him." Brad let the door close and thumped the roof.

Ray waited for him to leave the clearing and, after a brief confusion about which way Cardassian joysticks moved for up, got in the air. He flew low and slow, keeping a careful eye on the car's nav screen to make sure he avoided the red-bordered exclusion zone surrounding the sensor base, and another on a propped-up PADD showing maps Starfleet had given them. This might seem unwise for a species with only two eyes, but Ray wasn't going to crash a fucking air limo just because he wasn't paying full attention to what was in front of him. 

The area reminded Ray a lot of some of the pasture land back in Missouri, lots of rolling hills and ravines, not great for most crops but fine for livestock. He found a spot that was marked as a cave, just outside the boundaries of the preserve and maybe four klicks from a small cluster of barns and shit. He had to circle a couple times before he found the entrance, which was hidden from most angles and wasn't very large to begin with. He sat down as close as he could and hopped out, running around to the rear. Nate was still out of it and didn't so much as move as Ray turned on the stretcher's antigrav, betting that in a populated area it wouldn't trip any sensors. On impulse, he also snagged the communicator off the gul's wrist. That done, Ray went back to the front, activated the autopilot, and sent it off to meet its doom somewhere in the mountains far away from the platoon's extraction point. As it disappeared from view he high-tailed it for the cave mouth with Nate's stretcher in tow.

As caverns went, it was pretty nice, a lot better than that one full of gagh worms on some unpronounceable Klingon shithole. The entrance was maybe three meters wide and protected by an overhang. There was a short passage before it turned and widened into a much larger chamber, dozens of meters wide. There was a rough-hewn stairway leading down to the main floor of it, and the ground was worn smooth. It was comfortably cool inside, dry, and while dim there was enough light coming in from outside that once his eyes adjusted he didn't need to slip on his glasses.

On the other hand, it was occupied, something he realized only when several dozen golden eyes turned his ways and things he'd thought were rocks started to move. 

Ray fumbled for his hand phaser, and then nearly shit himself when something on a ledge about head-height went "Blaaaaat!" right in his ear and then licked him. He turned slowly and found himself face to face with some sort of critter. It wasn't a sheep. It wasn't a bear. It was something pretty goddamn similar to both those. Very fluffy, very round, chunky feet, bear-like face but no bear-like teeth as far as he could tell, and a long, dextrous tongue.

"Hey, there," Ray said, deciding that it if wasn't going to eat or attack him immediately, he'd just keep very slowly walking in. "Don't mind me. Just your friendly neighborhood Ray-Ray looking for somewhere to crash."

He eased his way to the back of the chamber, being snorffled at by curious sheep-bears the entire way, until he reached a spot where it started to narrow again and descend steeply into inky darkness. Not really wanting to find out what other surprises might lurk down there, he instead found a flat, elevated spot where he could lay out two bedrolls. He carefully transferred Nate to one and covered him with a blanket, then sat down on the other. 

Ray got out the medical tricorder to check Nate's vitals and was relieved to find there was still no internal bleeding. He also changed out the nutrient cartridge on the blood synthesizer for a fresh one. His charge taken care of, he switched to examining the stolen communicator, cracking open the casing with his boot knife and then breaking out his trust logic probes.

"So, uh, I've heard it's good to talk to unconscious people," Ray said as he worked. "Or was that's if they're in a coma? I think you're technically just asleep, so maybe it doesn't matter. Anyways, I've been thinking about how much gear I've been lugging around, and honestly, a lot of it seems like it's redundant. I get that that ExComm likes simple and rugged, but for this kind of mission we could drop some weight if we developed a better universal tool. There's these things called exocomps your android buddy released, with replicator noses…" 

Ray rattled on for a while, occasionally pushing away a sheep-bear that came over to investigate Nate. Eventually one just flopped down next to him and Ray gave up. He got the communicator hooked up to his deck and set that to record, and spent some more time taking a thorough inventory of what supplies he had. Finally he was left with nothing to do and decided that this was the best opportunity for a nap if he wanted to be rested when the time to escape came. He set his tricorder to wake him up in an hour or if there was movement at the entrance, laid down, and pulled the blanket over to cover him too.

When he woke up to the soft beep of the alarm, he found himself snuggled up against the LT's side, with one arm thrown across his chest for good measure. He tried to carefully extricate himself, only for Nate to blink his eyes open.

"I hope this is a dream," Nate said groggily. "Because while imagining you in bed with me is fun, if you're actually here I'm going to be pissed off."

"Really?" Ray said. He sat up and reached for the med kit. He raised his pitch. "Thank you, Ray, for hauling my ass halfway across this planet so that I didn't get eaten by wolves in the forest." He lowered back to normal. "You're welcome, lieutenant. Truly it was a heroic deed, but nothing I wouldn't have done for any of my comrades."

"Is what what you did?"

"It's close enough. Hold still." Ray ran the tricorder over him, then grabbed a hypospray and a water bottle filled with yellow liquid. He started to apply to injector, only for Nate to grab his wrist. 

"What's that?"

"I don't know, anti-inflammatories or something. Doc said to give it to you." Nate relented and let him press it to his neck. "And now you need to drink this. I guess too much fake blood from the trauma kit will fuck up your electrolytes."

"It looks like piss."

"It smelled like it too while he was mixing it."

Nate made a face but downed it in one go, then his frown deepened and he turned his head to the side. "Ray, why is there a Tarkellian sheep beside me?"

It licked his nose.

"Is that what it is? You got me, there were bunch is this cave when we got here. They're not going to eat us, are they?"

"No, they're herbivores. A very social species. Diurnal, like to live in caves if they aren't provided a barn or other shelter. Their fleece is a major export for this region. Help me sit up."

Ray eased him into position. "It's just us and the sheep, in case you're wondering. Brad and the rest should be most of the way to the extraction point by now."

"I'm glad someone followed directions. What have we got to work with?"

"My technical gear. One rifle, two hand phasers, two crickets, and a half-dozen variable grenades. A month of rations for each of us, four liters of water and a purification unit, and a half-empty field trauma kit. Our comms and tricoders. Fifteen sheep." Ray held up the Cardie communicator. "And this. I pulled the transmitter chip so it can't be traced, but we can still listen in."

"Good thinking. Hear anything interesting?"

"No alerts, if that's what you mean." Ray handed over the attached display. 

"Okay. Okay, that's more than I expected to have if I woke up. A lot more than what you start with in evasion training."

"Fuck, tell me about it."

"And there's two of us."

"Yep."

"Let's take a look at what the Cardassians have been saying and maybe we can figure out our next move." Nate stopped suddenly and looked toward the cave entrance. Ray turned as well, catching the sound of soft, slow footsteps. He handed Nate a phaser and hastily moved to the other side of the cavern so they could catch whoever it was in a crossfire. Hopefully it was just some poor shepherd about to get his day ruined.

"Ray," a voice called out, "if you try to shoot me, I'm shoving your phaser up your ass."

"There is no try, asshole," Ray called back. 

Brad stepped into view, hands raised and rifle slung across his chest. "You can tell yourself that."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Nate said. 

"Afternoon, sir."

"How do we know you're not a changeling?" Ray asked. "The real Brad is supposed to be thirty klicks from here on a mountain."

"If I were a master infiltrator and ruler of an interstellar empire, would I be wasting my time tricking you?"

"He's got a point, Nate. A real changeling wouldn't be that rude, either."

"Get in here," Nate ordered. "And please tell me everyone else is, in fact, thirty klicks away on a fucking mountain where they're supposed to be."

"I got them up to the escarpment, then turned command over to Lovell and headed this way. I made better time than I expected, but it's always easier to move alone."

"You know, I always suspected some day your bitching about command would turn into actual disobedience," Nate said. His face said stern disapproval, his voice said relieved. "But I guess I never expected it to be my orders you'd disobey. I am shocked and appalled, Sergeant."

"So am I," Ray said. "You're supposed to be a professional, and here you are breaking the rules like a Fleetie officer. Next thing we know you're going to be wearing red. Or blue!"

Brad gave him a look like it was Taco Tuesday and Ray'd had too many refried beans. "I told you I couldn't leave you behind."

"I'm too fucking tired and drugged up to get mad, so I'll figure out how I should punish you later," Nate said. He waved them both over to sit by him. A couple sheep-bears tried to lick Brad as he walked past but he dodged deftly. "Before I can do that, let's figure out a plan. Ray, how soon can I walk?"

Ray got out the medical tricorder again and showed Nate the scan results. "The red line on your stomach is smaller than it was, and so's this big orange area. Maybe another hour?"

"The ground assault will be starting by then," Brad said. "Fleet'll be here not long after that. It's not a very large window."

"Please tell me that Ray had some sort of plan," Nate asked, glancing between them.

"We hope there's a transporter at the landing field," Ray said. "We get to that and beam up."

"The one by the town south-east of the base? That's... a bit of a hike." By which Nate probably meant that even Brad's elven legs weren't going to carry him there inside their allotted time frame, let alone his injured ass.

"We could hide out here," Brad suggested. "Get a little deeper if we want to be careful. I brought everyone's spare rations, so if we wait a month for the heat to die down, we could stow away on a freighter."

Nate shook his head. "I wouldn't count on there being much outgoing traffic, and what there will be is probably going to be heading deeper into Cardassian space. No, we need to get out today."

"I'm not spending a month trapped in a cave," Ray said, "with Brad, when he's eating nothing but ratpacks."

"The last I checked, you don't shit chocolate and gumdrops either," Brad replied. "There's a farm nearby, there's got to be vehicles. I can go get us some transportation."

Nate frowned. "We're not splitting up."

"Sir, you were just complaining about me failing to split up."

"I also complained about the insubordination."

"We both know that by my standards, I'm going easy on you."

"You've never gone easy in your life."

The fuckers were starting to grin at each other, because of fucking course they were. Never mind Brad's shits, Ray would kill himself if he had to be around this an entire month.

"I think there's an Earth saying about pots and kettles."

"There's a Vulcan saying about waiting out daytime heat and the value of patience."

"Sir, is it your intention to filibuster until I no longer have time to carry out my proposed plan?"

"My intention is to order you to stay with us, not that orders have done much good today."

"I don't like it when mommy and daddy fight," Ray whined. That drew both their attention. 

"Ray, I understand we've all got our individual kinks," Nate said mildly, "but please don't call me daddy."

"Motherfucker. He keeps doing this," Ray told Brad. "I'm not sure what's worse, when it's blatant or when it's deniable."

"I'm high right now, Ray, everything I say is deniable." After a few seconds, Nate lost the cheer he'd built up while arguing and settled into his serious officer mode. "Without the ability to communicate with each other safely, we can't risk getting separated. The farm's a good idea, but we'll go together. If you're worried about whether I'll slow you down, well, that's what the hover stretcher and a tow rope is for."

"You're the one who's six four," Ray immediately said to Brad. "So that sounds like your job."

"Six-four what?" 

"It's a Midwest thing," Nate said. "You don't want to know."

It took about another forty minutes, much of it spent on Nate and Brad doing a fucking after-action debrief regarding the platoon's performace in the skirmish while Ray listened to the Cardies' comms chatter, before Nate felt up to standing. Even then he was wobbling in a concerning manner as he took a few dozen shaky steps across the cavern and immediately sat down again. He was better the next time he tried, and the tricorder said the wound was safely closed, but he still didn't look up for a multi-kilometer hike. 

"I didn't actually mean it," Nate said when Brad turned on the hover stretcher and gave him a pointed look. 

"Sir, would you rather continue delaying our departure in order appear rugged, or have enough stamina left to be combat effective when we reach our destination?"

"Fine." 

That was how the three of them ended up crossing the rolling grassy hills outside. Brad and Ray took turns pushing the stretcher, while Nate sat cross-legged on it like the world's largest and grumpiest toddler going for a walk in a stroller. Like many toddlers he was easily distracted, in this case by letting him listen to the increasingly desperate calls to the gul from search and rescue teams. Several sheep also tagged along.

"Hold on," Nate said halfway in, raising a hand. The team found a copse of trees to stop in and catch their breath. "A general alert just went out. Not near us, apparently someone just attacked the prefectural palace."

"It's about time," Brad said. He offered Nate his water bottle, but he waved it off. 

"Ray, can this switch channels?"

"Sure thing, LT. There's a slider, upper-left corner."

"Yeah, there's a lot of screaming about Klingons on this one." Nate looked between them. "We need to pick up the pace."

"Unless you want me to lasso a sheep," Ray said, "I think we're doing the best we can."

"We're Starfleet, Ray, I couldn't possibly countenance animal abuse."

"Man, I wish someone had told my drill instructors that."

"Animals can feel pain, discomfort, and shame," Brad said. "Recruits can't."

"Starfleet training is mild by historical standards," Nate added. "They don't even yell at you. It's scientifically designed to instill discipline and the skills needed to handle stressful situations without resorting to physical or emotional violence."

"Again, someone should have told the instructors that."

They did put on a little more hustle, and the terrain gradually flattened out and took a general downhill direction. The farmstead came into view just as the sun neared the horizon, a small cluster of a dozen or so barns and sheds surrounding a sprawling house. It almost felt like home, except everything was grey and there were lots of triangular motifs. They took up positions laying on hill a hundred meters away, looking through binoculars to check for activity and potential rides. Brad pointed out one outbuilding that looked like a garage as the first place to check.

Their recon was interrupted by a drawn-out distant roll of thunder. With no clouds out to the horizon, it took a moment to identify the source as meteors leaving long, smokey streaks across the sky. Even as they watched, there was the unmistakable flicker-flash of a warp core going up. They glanced at each other, then as one got up and started running for that garage.

"Too big," Ray said, passing a big grain hauler and a float-tractor. "That's a one-seater and is probably slow as fuck. Oh, hey, look at this."

This was a small four-wheeled utility vehicle with a cab just large enough for two people and a short bed behind it. Brad gave it an incredulous look. "It has wheels."

Ray gave Brad some side-eye, because the thing was practically identical to one his cousin had for chores and mudding. For all he knew it was the same open-source design. "You own a bike. Starfleet has dune buggies."

"Those are for recreation, or places where antigrav can't function. This is for work. What kind of primitive bullshit is this?"

"I'm feeling attacked right now."

"Cardassia's resource limitations have always skewed technology distribution, especially with the military consuming so much," Nate explained. He dropped into the passenger seat, breathing hard. "Brad, you'll have to ride in back. I don't think the canopy was sized with you in mind."

Ray didn't have to hotwire the thing, just unplug the charging cable, and a minute later they were careening across the countryside at unsafe speeds. In the darkening sky, the signs of orbital fighting grew more apparent, needle-thin lines of beam weapons and blinks of explosions joining a constant meteor shower of debris burning up in the atmosphere. None of that compared to the shock that came when there was a sudden flash far off to their left, followed seconds later by a crack of thunder and a rising mushroom cloud.

"Holy fuck!" Ray shouted.

"That was a torpedo strike," Brad called forward. "Looks like it took out the base."

"I guess that's one way to make sure the Dominion can't figure out how we fooled the sensors," Nate said dryly, peering past Ray to get a good look. 

"Did you know they were going to do that?"

"I guess they didn't think I needed to." Nate shrugged. "On the bright side, I'd say all the local authorities are going to be busy for a while."

"I should fucking hope so," Ray said, unconciously hunching a little more over the steering wheel as if it would make him a smaller target for falling space junk. He put the pedal to the metal and the poor, oversized go-cart's engine buzzed furiously. Brad let out a few furious noises of his own as they bumped, rattled, and on a couple occasions briefly flew over the terrain.

Their vehicle leaped over the crest of a hill and their destination came into view. Calling it a spaceport would be vastly overstating things. It was a couple dozen acres of ceramacrete with a couple fuel bunkers and warehouses, plus a few squat ships landed haphazardly around. Security seemed to consist of a line of fence, possibly backed by a forcefield. The nearest gate was on a different side than they were approaching.

"Brad, can you make us an entrance?" Nate shouted. 

"On it." Brad unslung his pulse rifle and adjusted its power setting before laying it across the top of the cab. 

"You want me to slow down?" Ray asked as the vehicle shuddered over a rock.

"Nope." There was a flash and a chunk of ground exploded next to a fence post. Three more shots left it all toppling over, just in time for them to roll across it.

Nate had his tricoder out scanning, and he pointed at one warehouse near the gate. "There's a transporter in that one. Eight life signs. Phasers on stun, guys, they could be civilians."

They screeched and skidded to a halt next to the building, at which point Brad took Nate's direction as an order to blow a hole through the wall. They rushed through and immediately shot a bunch of guys cowering behind or under various pieces of office furniture. 

"Hi, there," Nate said, squatting down next to a Cardie who'd come rushing out of the restroom and immediately fell on his face thanks to some debris. "Which way is the transporter room?"

The Cardassian silently pointed down a dimly-lit corridor. 

"Thanks." Nate stunned him, then thoughtfully turned him over into rescue position. "Brad, you're up."

The transporter was a big cargo model, positioned next to a large hangar-style door. The entire room was dark even by Cardassian standards, lit only by what looked to be emergency lighting. Brad hustled over to put his well-hidden technology skills to use for once instead of pawning it off to Ray. 

"So there's good news and there's bad news," Brad after a minute of manipulating the controls. "The bad news is that the fleet's already left orbit. I don't see any ships in transporter range."

"And the good news is they're still close enough we can call one back?" Nate asked. 

"The good news is that we don't have to risk someone's lives by doing so, because this thing doesn't have power. It looks like the main grid got cut - I'm not going to blame the Klingons, but it was probably the Klingons - and there's no local backup except for the base."

"The one that's a crater."

"Astute as usual, sir."

There were a few brief moments where it looked like the stress was finally starting to get through Nate's self-control. His lips were tight, his stare directed at some point midway between Brad and Ray, and somehow he managed to look even more pallid. He took a couple deep breaths and tried to smile. "Fine. We're Rangers. We don't need Fleeties. Let's hijack one of those ships out there and expedite our own rescue."

"Most looked interplanetary only," Brad said, "but there were a couple that might work."

They went back outside, through the actual door this time, and walked out onto the landing field. Most of the ships there were obviously unsuitable: basically the equivalent of cargo trucks, designed to hook up to a container full of bulk goods or fleece or whatever and fly it up to a ship waiting elsewhere in the system. There were a few mid-range shuttles, but Brad took them past those as well, until they reached a ship at the far end of the field.

"This is garbage," Ray said. He wasn't even saying it just to complain. He'd been on his feet long enough that he was too tired for that shit unless absolutely necessary. It was a small, beat-up old courier ship, the sort used to haul five or six people on short interstellar hops. It was thirty meters long at most, vaguely disc-shaped and with little pincher things at one end. Maybe it had been a good ship before Ray had been born, but even by Cardassian standards it was behind the times. 

"It's got a warp drive, and a big one at that," Brad responded. 

"If it works."

"The garbage will do," Nate said, striding for it. "Anything that gets us moving now is better than waiting to find something perfect."

The ship wasn't even locked. Maybe that was because Cardassians were all law-abiding people who deeply feared the security services, or maybe it was because it was garbage. They crammed into the small cockpit at the nose, which had three positions in a triangular layout. Ray took the center pilot's seat, with Nate to the left at comm-scan and Brad right on engineering. It only took a couple minutes to hotwire the controls, and then they were airborne.

"This brings back memories," Ray said as they cleared the atmosphere and he steered well clear of the massive debris clouds in low orbit. "You and me, crammed into a tiny metal box, a cute sidekick tagging along. All we need is a psycho killer and it'll be just like old times, before you got promoted and decided to spend all your time with the boss instead of your best friend."

"What the fuck are you even talking about?" Brad asked. "I spend plenty of time with Tony. Better yet, why the fuck are you talking?"

"Because you haven't powered up the warp drive yet."

"Give me two more minutes to warm it up."

"Do we have two minutes?"

"Just fly casual, Ray," Nate said. "I'm not detecting any Federation or Klingon ships, but there don't seem to be any Dominion ships around either."

"Casual, right." Ray was pretty much headed in a straight line, so he wasn't sure how much more casual he could get. 

A minute later Nate's computer started bleeping at him. "We're being hailed. Looks like someone back on the planet. I'm going to try to stall them."

A deep, gravelly voice came over the speakers. Ray approved of whoever had made that hiring decision. "Courier Swiftsure, this is Torros Control. Respond immediately."

"Swiftsure here. Torros Control? We thought you were all dead!"

"This is Southern Control, not Primary. Swiftsure, why are -"

"That's so fortunate. There were so many emergency signals, we thought for sure the entire command structure had been killed."

"Yes. Swiftsure, why have you left orbit?"

"The Klingons!"

"What about them?"

"They're attacking. We were told to take off and find somewhere out of the way to wait for help."

"The Klingons are gone."

"They were breaking down the gates just a few minutes ago, though. Our manager was worried they wanted to use our ships as bombs." Nate pressed a button. "Sergeant, any time you feel like turning the fucking engines on would be good."

"They're still there?" Mr. Traffic Control squawked. "Return to orbit and wait for further instructions."

Brad tapped. Ray's shoulder. "You should have warp power."

"And we're running," Ray said. The stars outside the cockpit flare and shifted into streaks. "At warp three? You said this was fast!"

"It is fast. The drives are still warming up. Give it a few minutes more."

Nate made a little hmmm noise. "How many is a few? And how fast would you say this ship is compared to a Hideki-class patrol ship?"

"Once we're up to speed, it's not even close. I take it this isn't idle curiosity?"

"No. There's one coming in to intercept. Ray, change our course toward that outer ice giant. We'll try to dodge them until we can hit full speed."

"Aye, sir." Ray entered the new heading. He got them as close as he dared before dropping out of warp. A big blue ball popped into view, surrounded by a vast expanse of shining, silvery rings. It would have been nice to look at if a bunch of fascists hadn't appeared behind them seconds later and immediately started shooting. 

"Take us into the rings!" Nate said. "They're four times our size, we get in deeper than they can."

"You understand I am not a combat pilot, right?" Ray demanded as he obeyed. A golden beam lanced past the window. "I do landings, not dogfights."

"One of the joys of Starfleet is that you get to try new things all the time."

"Christ, I should have known you're one of those officers."

Ray's science teacher had always said that asteroids fields were almost never as dense as portrayed in holodramas. In fact, asteroids were usually thousands of kilometers apart. Apparently no one had told the chunks of ice ahead that, because they were packed together like it was Fleet Week on Orion and they'd heard there was free admission at the dance clubs. 

"I don't know why you're surprised," Brad said. "By the way, I'm angling our shields aft, so don't crash."

"Great. Shouldn't someone be shooting back?"

"I just did, actually," Nate said. "I don't think they noticed."

Ray ducked and weaved through the ice field. For a few seconds it seemed like maybe they'd lost their pursuer, only for another beam to scream past and explode an iceberg the size of a soccer stadium right in front of them.

"I can't believe," Ray shouted as a shower of pebbles pinged off the hull, "that I'm going to die in a space battle like some kind of common Fleetie."

Ray could feel Brad roll his eyes. "I feel like I should remind you that this is entirely your fault. We're only on this mission because of your misdeeds."

"My fault? How the fuck is it my fault?" Ray demanded. "That's on Starfleet, not me!"

"Did you not tell him. sir?"

"Tell me what?"

Nate shook his head. "It didn't seem relevant."

"I suppose it might have been a distraction."

"If someone doesn't explain, I am turning this spaceship around."

"Starfleet didn't choose you just because you were the most conveniently located ranger with some tech skills," Brad said. "Remember that shore leave on DS9? The one where you hacked into the holosuites and got us all banned for life?"

"You haven't let me forget, and don't think I don't know who told Nate about that."

"That was actually Admiral Soltani," Nate said, "although her version was somewhat drier than Brad's full explanation."

"The fuck?"

"Think about it, Ray," Brad said, far too happy for a man who was about to be vaporized. "It was a Cardassian holosuite, running on a Cardassian computer core, with Cardassian security software. You completely fucked it up with nothing but a communicator, a screwdriver, and some tape, all while shitfaced."

Ray contemplated that for a bit while dodging another disruptor shot. "So Nate."

"Yes, Ray?"

"Are you willing to acknowledge the existence of bad luck now?"

"I don't know. Personally, I think this evidence supports my alternative hypothesis that it's not so much bad luck as karma, or the universe just hating you."

"We're about to die any second, can't you give me this one fucking thing?"

"I'm a Starfleet officer. My first duty is to the truth."

"I don't even know why I like you."

"Tell you what, let me buy you dinner and we can talk about luck versus fate."

"We're from Earth, we don't buy anything."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Fine, but it better be somewhere nice."

"I always knew," Brad said, "that I'd die surrounded by assholes."

There was a shower of sparks as they took a hit, followed by another as the shock made them tumble and graze an ice cube. Ray narrowly avoided splattering them into three more in quick succession.

"Sir, our shields are failing," Brad said. The ship rocked again. "Make that gone."

"Ray, take us out. Either we can outrun them or we can't. Brad, dump everything we've got into the engines."

Ray jerked them around and onto a heading perpendicular to the rings. A few more twists and turns got them clear of the ice and shooting out into empty space. He reached for the warp controls, only to hesitate as space twisted and shimmered. A Klingon bird of prey decloaked dead in front of them, wings down in attack position and torpedo tube glowing. 

"Oh, shit," Ray shouted. The bird of prey's launcher flared and he squeezed his eyes shut, fully expecting an ironic death. The ship failed to explode around him. "Why are we still alive?"

"They fired on the patrol ship," Nate said, too surprised to be relieved. "Let me hail them." 

Nate's words were distorted by an electric whine. The air filled with a red glow and the walls around them dissolved. Ray found himself sitting on a dingy, dusty Klingon transporter room.

"Qapla!" A Klingon standing behind a control console shouted. He yammered some more in Klingon and Nate answered him in the same. 

"He says we should go to the bridge," Nate said. Brad and Ray helped him up to his feet and they hurried out of the room, stumbling a bit in the main corridor as the ship rocked a few times. 

"Lieutenant Fick! And Corporal Person as well," Captain Gralnath said, twisting her command chair around as they entered the bridge. "How fortuitous."

"Thank you for the rescue, ma'am," Nate replied. He had to brace himself against Brad as everything lurched and the stars spun wildly on the viewscreen. 

"It was no trouble, and I'm sure you had the situation under control."

"How did you know that was us? I didn't have time to set up an ID signal."

"I didn't! We were left behind as rear guard and to harass their relief efforts. I simply thought that anyone the Cardassians were trying to kill was worth helping." The deck rumbled again. "Why is that ship still troubling us?"

A Klingon looked over his shoulder at her. "We destroyed it, my lady, but two more have taken its place."

"Hmph. Well, Nathaniel, we had a glorious battle and a resounding victory. It appears you had one as well, unless human fashion has changed suddenly in the last day."

"We did get into a fight," Lt. Understatement said. He was starting to wobble in a concerning manner again. Ray would say he was feeling the same, now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, but even he couldn't stretch the truth that far.

"I look forward to hearing of it. Kordath, show our guests to my dining room. See to it they have bloodwine, and have the cook place a grelnak on the spit. I shall join them when we are clear of the system."

A chunky Klingon climbed to his feet and grunted at them. They were lead back through the ship's neck and up a dangerously steep stair to some sort of crazy-ass torchlit feasting hall. The three of them sat down on a bench running along a carved wood table, Ray and Brad flanking Nate so that he wouldn't topple. Liter-sized mugs of something red and steaming were thunked down in front of them.

"Does anyone here," Brad said wearily after a minute, "have the slightest fucking clue what a grelnak is?"

Nate nodded. "It's sort of like an emu, but bigger and carnivorous."

"Just to be clear," Ray said as he fiddled with inserting a fresh recharge pack into Nate's blood machine, "I expect real food. Barbeque, maybe. Actual barbeque, not that North Carolina shit."

"Huh?" Nate was kind of adorable when he was exhausted.

"When you take me out to dinner."

Nate pulled his little notepad and a blue pen from his vest. Parts of the cover were bloodstained but otherwise it was in pretty good shape. He tossed them in front of Ray. "Write down what is and is not real food, and I'll see what I can do."

"This is a bad idea," Brad muttered. The two of them looked at him, Ray feeling his heartbeat speed right the fuck back up and Nate getting all stony-faced. 

"Setting his expectations this high to begin with, I mean," Brad clarified, possibly bemused. "He'll only get worse. That's entirely separate from whether it's wise to stick your dick in him."

"You're making a lot of presumptions there, pal."

"Your objections are noted, Sergeant, but I can handle this myself."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Brad said before downing his bloodwine.


	5. Chapter 5

**Risa  
Stardate 51258.2 (four months later)**

Brad meandered through the torchlit boardwalk of the Pearl Sands Resort, dodging around drunks and clusters of people standing still despite the name of the location. Even after sunset the all-encompassing party atmosphere showed no sign of abating. He supposed he couldn't expect to be visiting Risa in the quiet season; after all, the fact that he was there meant twenty thousand other members of Starfleet on leave were as well. 

He wasn't going to complain too much about crowd, because it was a pretty nice place otherwise. The pre-industrial tropical paradise look was a bit kitschy, but the surfing was good, the food and drink excellent, and the locals very welcoming indeed. One day in and he was already starting to feel relaxed. There was still an itchy spot in the middle of his back from roaming around unarmed while surrounded by strangers, but its very presence suggested some leave was needed.

Officially unarmed, at any rate. Brad wouldn't be much of a ranger if he couldn't conceal a cricket phaser in the eye-assaulting floral board shorts he'd been forced to wear by his so-called friend.

Brad reached his hotel and ascended up several flights of stairs. He, Nate, and Ray had managed to snag an ocean-facing two-bedroom suite, probably because of good planning and not any rigging of the reservation system. Brad hesitated at the door before cautiously entering, just in case he was about to run into the sort of depravity that Ray usually got up to on shore leave. Instead he found the opposite. In fact, it was a disgustingly domestic scene. 

The living room had a pair of couches and an armchair facing the balcony and the sea beyond. Ray was curled up on one couch, snoring away and drooling onto a pillow. It looked like he was wearing tan exercise shorts but he was half-covered with a blanket. His torso and arms were turning red, but there was a dermal regenerator already waiting on the nearby coffee table. Nate was stretched out on the other, wearing matching shorts and t-shirt, and holding an actual hardbound paper book. The entire room was dimly lit by simulated candlelight. Brad wasn't sure at all how he felt about this; walking in on them going at it like a pair of rabbits would have been more easily handled.

Renting a suite together had seemed logical at the time. Risa might be an entire planet, but despite its reputation it wasn't literally one big resort, and while the tourist traffic was understandably down a lot of the vacation spots had been converted to refugee housing. More to the point, the areas that the Fleet had reserved for its use were only so large and this one was currently hosting the better part of a brigade and the crews of fifty ships. If you wanted to get a nice room and still have some of your stipend left, bunking together was the efficient option. He'd done it plenty of times before when he didn't feel the need for privacy, usually with the expectation that he might have to put up with overhearing some drunken fumbling. He'd thought this leave would involve more of the same, given how little time their schedule had left for romance or even quickies.

Instead he'd gotten this, which was somehow worse. 

"Brad?" Nate said, looking up from his book. "You're back earlier than expected."

Brad shut the door behind him, considered his options for a moment, then walked over to take a seat in the armchair. "I wasn't quite feeling the bar scene, so after I got your message I thought I'd drop by and see what's up with this mission."

Nate frowned and set his book aside. "That was just a head's up. We're still here for the rest of the week like everyone else. I can show you the packet I was sent if you really want to waste leave hours."

"When an admiral shoots you an FYI, it seems wise to be up to speed in case the schedule changes."

"I have to admit, I'm still not sure how I feel about her deciding my platoon are her personal problem-fixers." Nate sighed and shrugged. "But that's a Monday problem. I hope you didn't abandon anything interesting just to hear that. I know you're usually on the hunt about now."

"Don't worry about me, I've had my fun for the night. There were a pair of locals who wanted to express their gratitude for my service." Brad was pretty sure that couple had mostly wanted to bag the first good-looking, species-compatible soldier they could get their hands on, but he certainly wasn't going to complain about their enthusiasm. He was out there looking to get his rocks off in a mutually enjoyable manner, not build bonds.

"Just two? I suppose you need to pace things."

"I have to say, I'm a bit surprised myself. After months trapped on ships and mud-covered hellholes, I expected more debauchery than what you're getting up to. You have stereotypes to uphold."

"If you wanted to witness debauchery, you should have come back right after dinner," Nate said. "Or not taken that run before breakfast." 

"So you're waiting to recharge? It must have been pretty athletic to wear him out."

"Ray's taking a nap for a few minutes. At least that's what he assured me." Nate grinned. "Between you and me, I think your attempt at surfing lessons this afternoon did him in."

"At least he's relaxed for a change," Brad murmured. 

Even after he'd instituted a ban on stims outside of missions, Ray's stress level had been slowly amping up. Understandable, given how the war had been going, but worrying, especially as physical twitchiness had increased in proportion to a decrease in volume. The tension in his wiry muscles had already noticeably decreased. Maybe it was just a temporary respite, but it was still something, and for once Brad could be solely concerned with his happiness and not think about combat effectiveness.

Nate wasn't doing all that well either, external appearances to the contrary. He was better at hiding it, but Brad could see right through him. Fewer smiles and witty digressions, more terse instructions and baggy-eyed stares. He was starting to lose weight, too, the last of his baby fat melting away.

"You know," Nate said softly, breaking into his thoughts and drawing his attention away from Ray, "you can observe everything and admire _some_ things."

"Don't worry," Brad assured him, "I'm not planning to poach."

"That's never been a concern. You can't poach when it's open season."

Brad tried to parse that. "Depends on what you're hunting."

"Sorry. Ray's the expert at colorful rural metaphors. I guess what I'm trying to say - you know you have my complete trust, right? And not just professionally." It was a little unsettling to see Nate struggling to find the right words to express himself. The empty wine glass at his side probably didn't help.

"Of course. I'm glad to be your friend." A snuffling noise and motion on the couch thankfully provided a distraction. "Looks like Sleeping Beauty's waking up."

Indeed, Ray's head had lifted slightly and one eye was blinking blearily at him."Bwah? Is that you, Brad?"

"Good morning, Ray." Brad ignored the exasperated looking Nate gave him.

"Morning?"

"Morning. Come on, get in your uniform. We're supposed to beam back to the ship in twenty minutes."

"What? Fuck!" Ray came scrambling off the couch and almost immediately tripped himself with the blanket. "We just got here last night, didn't we? How much did you let me drink - oh. Fuck you. Fuck you, you fucking fuck."

"You can do better than that," Nate chided. "If Standard isn't vulgar enough, try Klingon."

Ray threw the pillow at him. "I am on fucking leave, this is not an excuse for you to try to make me practice other languages."

"There was one other reason I dropped in," Brad said. "Assuming you're not planning to immediately jump into round three the moment my back is turned, I was alerted that there'd be a small, private gathering of some people from our battalion and others that were on the Torros mission. If you're willing to put aside your lust for a few hours, you're welcome to tag along. I'm told there will be music and various recreational intoxicants."

"Yeah, I could go for that," Ray replied. "Assuming that it's not some kind of mathematically perfect and completely soulless Vulcan music."

"We make excellent beach music."

"Dune seas are not actual seas."

"They're not the same words in Vulcan," Nate said before Brad could make the same complaint.

"Seriously, no linguistics the rest of the week. And why does everything hurt?"

"Because you refused to apply sunscreen. Hold still while I zap you with the regenerator."

"I'll have you know that we have a deep cultural appreciation for the sea," Brad said while Ray squirmed under Nate's ministrations, "which is only heightened by the fact that our planet isn't covered by oversized puddles like yours."

As they settled into the familiar friendly banter, Brad felt himself relax. Really, when you got right down to it, things hadn't changed much. If this turned into something more long-term than a comfortable wartime buddy-fuck, well, whatever kept them functioning and on an even keel was fine with him. If anything, saccharine sappiness aside, it was pretty convenient; keeping track of the platoon's amorous relations was a pain in the ass, even for the people he wasn't actually friends with. Nate and Ray fucking simplified things greatly. The three of them were still friends and that mattered much more to Brad than physical affections.

Ray smacked his shoulder. "Brad, stop brooding and get your ass in gear."

Yep, everything was perfectly fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you worry about Brad, he'll get his shit together in the next fic. *checks* I mean, the one after the next. Both of which are written and just undergoing revision!


End file.
